Posted: Wednesday, 10 March 2010 4:49AM
Bear Hunt Okayed; Critics Blast Plan
Martin Di Caro Reporting
For the first time in five years New Jersey will hold a black bear hunt, pending the approval of the head of the Department of Environmental Protection. The state Fish and Game Council Tuesday unanimously approved a new bear management plan that includes a six-day hunt in December. The public will have an opportunity to weigh in on the new policy at a hearing.
The policy also will continue ongoing non-lethal methods of controlling New Jersey's growing black bear population, Fish and Game Council assistant director Larry Herrighty said.
"It includes an extensive and expensive education program, a continuation of what we are doing already," he said, "a continued response to nuisance and problem bears. They recommended some changes in the statute on banning the feeding of bears to make it more enforceable."
Herrighty said a study at East Stroudsburg University established a new estimated black bear population, more than 3,400 north of I-80 and west of I-287.
"The biologists have recommended that this population is capable of supporting a hunt. The issue of whether there is a hunt is going to be between the council and the commissioner."
Animal rights activists naturally oppose a hunt. Some environmentalists added their voice to the opposition, saying there are better strategies for dealing with nuisance bears.
"Their science is cooked. Remember, it's the same people who want the hunt that are behind the science. Based on their estimates, if you were walking in northern Passaic county all you would see are bears," said Jeff Tittel, the director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey. "The state has not actually put up the resources or implemented a bear management plan that looks at non-lethal alternatives. We've cut the programs for bear wardens; we basically eliminated it. We cut the money for education. We've not dealt with the issues of garbage."
Tittel said letting hunters roam the woods for six days amounts to a recreation activity, not a scientific management plan.
"It's going to happen in wildlife management areas and open space areas so it's not going to address the nuisance bears. We'll be out there killing the docile bears that are living in woods while the nuisance bears will still be living next to the population," he said.
State officials said that after each of the last two hunts bear nuisance complaints dropped. Complaints and sightings have been increasing, Herrighty said in an interview last month after a black bear stormed through a porch screen and ate a pet rabbit. The bear was shot.
After that incident, Herrighty said in 2009 twenty-seven Category 1 bears were killed or euthanized mostly by police officers or permitted farmers. Category 1 is a designation for bears that are threatening life or property. Bear nuisance complaints, including sightings, totaled more than 3,000 in 2009. He said in the mid-1990s such complaints were about 500 per year.
"The level of complaints has tracked the increase in the bear population."
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