An Alaskan photographer has been charged with illegally baiting bears for an episode of the History Channel show "MonsterQuest."

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jim Oltersdorf hung bait on strings over a large scale -- in violation of federal wildlife law -- and set up motion-activated cameras to photograph bears that came to the bait station.

"The essence of this case is that during the course of a filming session in the national park down in Kenai, they tied a couple of bones about 20 feet high in a tree for purposes of trying to get a bear to come to a particular spot so they could weigh it," said Brent Cole, Oltersdorf's attorney.

The episode for which Oltersdorf was issued the violation, titled "Giant Bear Attack," first aired Sept. 24, 2008, and focused on bear attacks and whether bears are evolving back to their larger prehistoric proportions.

Oltersdorf has also worked with the Discovery Channel and shot for numerous national aviation and outdoor magazines.

"It is hard for me to imagine that they don't have anything better to do in our park service than to run down something like this," Cole said.

Joseph Darnell, the U.S. Department of the Interior attorney assigned to the case, declined to comment. Olsterdorf's trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 4.

A variety of reality show and documentary crews have filmed in Alaska recently, and some of those shoots have resulted in conflict.

In March, prisoners at a Bethel jail sued the state Department of Corrections, alleging that they were forced to be filmed for an episode of the National Geographic show "Lockdown."

Earlier this year, Animal Planet filmed the aftermath of an alleged mass killing of caribou near Point Hope, a large Inupiat village in Northwest Alaska. Eight men accused of killing the caribou and not salvaging the meat are scheduled to stand trial Nov. 30.

Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul_alaskadispatch.com.