New Jersey took its first step towards holding its first bear hunt since 2005 when the state Fish and Game Council voted 7-0 on Tuesday to include a black bear season as part of its new bear management plan.
But even as hunt proponents celebrated the victory, Bob Martin, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), offered a reminder that he has the final say on whether or not the hunt proceeds. A 2007 New Jersey Superior Court ruling mandates that any Fish and Game Council policy be approved by the DEP commissioner in accordance with New Jersey’s Administrative Procedure Act. Public hearings on the hunt will also be held before Martin reaches a decision.
“In recent weeks, I have met with council members to discuss a range of black bear issues and the need for a multi-faceted management strategy that is based on solid science and the latest research,” Martin said. “I intend to scrutinize this proposed policy to make sure it provides the best possible solutions to the considerable challenge of managing this valued wildlife resource in the nation’s most densely populated state.”
The council has approved a six-day bear hunt for this December.
New Jersey’s bear season was suspended beginning in 2006 at the direction of then-DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson and former Gov. Jon Corzine. Since 2006, New Jersey’s bear population and the number of bear nuisance complaints have skyrocketed.
In 2005, the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) estimated the state’s black bear population at 1,600 animals, concentrated mainly in the state’s northwestern counties of Sussex and Warren. According to researchers at Pennsylvania’s East Stroudsburg University, New Jersey’s bear population numbered 3,438 animals in 2009, and it continues to grow. Bruins can now be found in all 21 of New Jersey’s counties.
Pat Carr, DFW bear management supervisor, told the Fish and Game Council that the bear population in the far northwest corner of the state has more than tripled in the past decade, with a corresponding increase in nuisance complaints from residents. The DFW recorded 1,303 bear nuisance complaints in 2006, 1,411 in 2007, 2,806 in 2008, and 3,003 last year. Complaints have ranged from bears getting into garbage, to killing pets, to climbing on porches. They have also been spotted near schools.
Having advocated the scientific merits of a bear hunt for years, DFW biologists are now saying that the state’s bear population cannot be controlled without hunting.
Carr told the Newark Star-Ledger that the bear population is growing so rapidly due to of an abundance of food, which is causing New Jersey’s bears to live longer, reproduce at younger ages, and give birth to more cubs than bears do in other parts of the country. Undoubtedly, the fact that bears have no natural predators in New Jersey has also played a role in the population surge.
To put into perspective how good bears in New Jersey have it, Carr said bears in most areas of the country begin to reproduce at age 4 or 5, but bears in New Jersey reproduce around age 2 or 3. Bears in New Jersey average three cubs per litter, as compared to two elsewhere, and 86 percent of adult bears and 70 percent of cubs survive each year, which Carr told the Star-Ledger is “extremely high.”
According to Dr. Len Wolgast, who taught wildlife biology at Rutgers University for more than 34 years and drafted the new bear management policy as a member of the Fish and Game Council, the generally accepted optimum bear density is one bear per three square miles. In northwest New Jersey, the bear density is three bears per square mile, which is the highest in the nation.
Despite overwhelming scientific justification for a bear hunt, anti-hunting groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States and the Sierra Club, have condemned the new management plan, even though the policy also includes non-lethal methods of dealing with problem bears, in addition to a hunt. These groups have advocated that non-lethal controls, such as better containment and management of residential trash, continue as the primary means of bear management in New Jersey.
It should be noted that neighboring states, such as Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland, have all effectively and safely used hunters to keep their bear populations in check.
“You are all wildlife murderers,” bear advocate Barbara Sachau said during a meeting of the Fish and Game Council.
The Bear Education and Resource Group, which opposes the hunt, has already begun the process of suing the Game and Fish Council, claiming that it held a private meeting of the game committee in violation of the Open Public Meeting Act. The game committee decided on the new bear hunt policy.
Wolgast, who chairs the game committee, said while the council’s regular meetings are open to the public, subcommittee meetings are not subject to the same requirement.
Despite opposition from anti-hunting groups, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has publicly expressed his support for a bear hunt. It will now be up to the man he named as DEP commissioner to decide if that support will lead to the long-awaited reinstatement of New Jersey’s bear season, allowing hunters to once again become a part of the management solution.
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