I read with some dismay that officials attributed the much smaller total of bears culled in 2022 to the assertion that “the hunt was not held Monday, Dec. 5, which had been advertised as the first day ... (as) many hunters traditionally arrange to take off work the first day of the hunt.”
It seems to me that because concerned parties had won a court stay in a lawsuit questioning the rationale for the hunt, officials choose to blame that one-day delay, failing to honestly assess the limited numbers in an extended hunt, as if the bulk of the days were simply invisible!
How about the assertions that MOST “negative bear encounters” are unverified phone calls and have been for years?
Many have thought that hunters have deliberately inflated these “encounters” so as to spur the hunt.
While there are verifiable issues with some bears, the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife has almost completely ignored input by wildlife scientists and bear management specialists for years.
I personally had a pet rabbit killed many years ago by a rogue bear in my neighborhood, who was aggressive to others as well, and we were grateful he was terminated, so I am aware of the fact that individual bears must be tracked, targeted and eliminated.
I am also encouraged by new limitations adopted in this year’s hunt regarding bear cubs, lactating females and proximity to baited areas (foolish by any interpretation, associating food with people, no matter in what vicinity).
The fact remains that until there is a meaningful feeding ban, until the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enacts a program for bear-proof cans (which have worked for my family for nearly three decades, with only three breaches), gaining cooperation from the trash haulers in the area, and until “reported” incidents that are anecdotal are eliminated, our living natural resources are imperiled and there is a clear dereliction of duty in the lack of accountability and transparency within the DEP.
This, of course, extends to widespread, virtually unchecked and unchallenged logging in the Highlands in particular (though not exclusively), but that is a subject for a different day.
Suffice to say that the fox is watching the henhouse on that one, with John Cecil now being an assistant commissioner.
Perhaps a journalist can be assigned to investigate any of my assertions. I actually wish to be irrefutably proven wrong.
Jennifer Downing
Stockholm