Date : Tue, 3 Mar 2015 13:25:08 -0500
March 3, 2015
Contact Jeff Tittel, 609-558-9100
Expanding the Bear Hunt Makes No Sense
The Christie Administration has announced they will continue the annual December bear hunt and added another hunt in October 2016. The December hunt can be extended up to four days due to bad weather and an additional six day hunt will be added in October. The Administration will also allow hunting in Hunterdon, Somerset, and Morris County as well as parts of Passaic and Mercer Counties. Between the last five hunts 1,871 bears have been killed with population in the hunting area around 2,400 to 2,800. New Jersey Sierra Club believes, as always that these hunts are unwarranted, unfounded, and will not help to mange bears in the state of New Jersey. Unless New Jersey deals with protection of habitats, garbage, and educating people in bear country, expanding the hunt is meaningless.
"The Fish & Game Council, instead of coming up with funding and a real management plan, they are doubling down on the failed policies of the past. Instead of education and dealing with garbage,
they added more hunts. By expanding the hunt they are
Aggressive bear encounters went up 55% in the past year despite four years of hunts. There are more complaints are happening outside of the area where we allow a hunt including areas along the Delaware River, Delaware Valley, along with Central and Monmouth County. With these increase encounters and complaints we still lack an educational program on coming in contact with bears. Bears are wild animals and need to be respected. Most bears avoid people, but bears that have been feed or exposed to food from humans then see people as a source of food and become aggressive. Bears don't become aggressive that day, it happens over time because they have been fed by humans. Instead of a bear hunt, we need to do a better job on education, not only for hikers but people in Bear Country. We need to require bear proof garbage containers and strictly enforce a prohibition on the feeding of bears so tragedies like this can be avoided. We also need to have signs warning people they are in bear country and have educational materials listed at all trail heads.
"New Jersey used to spend more than $2 million a year on bear management education, that money has been reduced by 90%. Ten years ago New Jersey had bear wardens whose jobs were to manage bears and educate the public. That program has been eliminated. Now only Conservation Officers do that work and there are 40% less of them then there was ten years ago. They not only have to deal with bears, but other species, poachers, and everything else. The Christie Administration thinks it is cheaper and easier to have a hunt rather than an effective management plan," stated Tittel.
The Sierra Club has had serious concerns with allowing another bear hunt to in New Jersey with 1,599 bears already killed from the past four hunts. The DEP used eliminating aggressive and nuisance bears as a justification for the originally hunt but did not disclose the number taken, possibly because the hunt had very little affect on the nuisance bear population. Human-bear interactions and bear-related complaints can often be attributed to a singular nuisance bear within a region, living close to homes. The bears that ultimately paid the price of the hunt were those living in the forests that do not venture into neighborhoods and communities.
"The hunt is more about politics and a way for the Governor to show support for the hunting groups that supported him in the election. However, getting rid of the black bear is part of Christie's roll back on environmental regulations. He wants to get rid of bears, forests, clean air, and clean water. It is all part of the same political strategy to turn New Jersey over to the developers and polluters," said Jeff Tittel. "Unfortunately the only sure fire way to stop a bear hunt is to change Administrations."
Eliminating docile bears is not part of an effective bear management plan and the state still does not have a real plan in place. The Commissioner put together a bear management plan, but it does not address key components such as education and nonlethal bear management programs. These critical programs have been cut because funding has been eliminated. In addition, the state does not have enough conservation officers to manage black bears.
"Nuisance bears have become problem bears and they will end up being destroyed. This is used as a justification for the bear hunt instead of putting in place real bear management policies. New Jersey instead of protecting habitat, educating the public, and dealing with food sources like garbage they have the hunt, which to them is their only real management plan," said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.
The New Jersey Sierra Club supports an effective bear management plan that combines non-lethal methods of dealing with bears, public education, and steps that properly handle garbage. The first step to implementing an effective bear management plan is education. More than half a million New Jersey residents live in bear country, but many do not have the expertise or experience to understand bears and avoid confrontations with them. At the most basic level, people need to be taught that bears are wild animals and should be treated with respect and from a distance. People must be educated that feeding bears as they would pets is dangerous and will lead to aggressive behavior in the future.
We must utilize non-lethal methods of dealing with conflicts between bears and humans. Bear aversion therapy, which trains bears to be afraid of humans and to avoid them, is an important program that helps to address the issue of bear and human conflicts. Unfortunately, the state has cut funding for bear aversion therapy. The state should have conservation officers and bear wardens to address bear complaints and educate the public about bears, but funding for that important program has also been cut.
New Jersey must deal with garbage or we'll continue to create nuisance bears. Without a concerted effort to codify and enforce requirements on garbage, other bear policies will fail. The state needs to mandate bear-proof containers and locking dumpsters in bear country and ban the practice of leaving garbage out overnight. Bears like garbage and consider it a source of food. If an abundant supply of trash is readily available, the bear population will increase and bears will become more aggressive as they learn that houses are good places to find food.
"We will never have a real bear management plan unless we deal with garbage, educate the public about how to live in bear country, and protect their habitat. There needs to be warning signs in bear country with post at all trail heads with Do's and Don'ts in bear country. These will do a lot more in managing the bear population than having a hunt," said Tittel.
We also must bear proof public areas. The state should work with towns and municipalities to put up fencing and take other steps to keep bears out of key areas, such as playgrounds. Bear proofing farms is essential, too. The state must cooperate with the agricultural sector to provide small grants to farmers that allow them to bear-proof their properties and protect them from potential damage.
"When is enough, enough? With 1,800 bears killed in the past four hunts we cannot continue at this rate we need to stop the bear hunt. If we keep having hunts we may be back to where we were in 1970 with only 50 bears in NJ The black bear is a symbol that New Jersey still has wild places and should be humanely regulated, not hunted for trophies. Enough with the hunts instead we need a strong bear management plan in place," said Jeff Tittel.
Protecting our habitat is another important step towards managing our bear population. Each year, New Jersey loses 8,000 to 10,000 acres of land in bear country. The more we build houses in the middle of the woods where bears live, the more conflict we will see between bears and humans. Killing bears that live in our cherished woods and wild places is not the answer to addressing the problem of nuisance bear in our neighborhoods. Part of the reason the bar population maybe spreading to other places could be because of the hunting.
"The hunt was supposed to be sustainable keeping the same number of bears, instead the number of bears is dropping. This is not a sustainable hunt or manageable hunt, it is a trophy hunt. It is about going after the bears in the deep woods, not bears closer to the population. Even with the hunt we have seen an increase in category 1 bears killed," said Jeff Tittel. "This hunt is unbearable."