Nearly 400 Bears Killed In N.J. Hunt

Nearly 400 black bears have been killed in New Jersey as part of a state-approved officials will help reduce the population and the number of incidents people encounter aggressive bears.

The six-day long weapons hunt began in New Jersey Monday morning. Since then, the state’s black bear population has been culled by 390, or 15 percent of the estimated 3,500 living in the state.

The hunt is designed to control the black bear population, which has not significantly decreased since the first hunt was held in 2010. Last year, 272 bears were harvested, up slightly from the 251 killed in 2013 but large decrease in the 592 harvested in 2010, the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife said.

The hunt coincides with the time when bears are becoming less active and are beginning to den. The hunt was purposely planned for this time of year to be conservative as biologists assessed the first five years of hunting. A maximum of 11,000 permits have been allocated for the hunt.

Bears continue to thrive in the northwestern part of the state. Larger litters of cubs are born here and more of the cubs survive to adulthood, the state said.

The bears are also becoming more aggressive.

Two North Jersey parks, Ramapo Mountain State Forest and the Ramapo Valley County Reservation, were closed in October due to reports of aggressive bears. The state forest was closed for two weeks due to a series of encounters between hikers and an aggressive bear.

Hikers reported two separate encounters with an aggressive bear. The bear reportedly approached, swatted at, and chased after a hiker, and followed other hikers.

Animal rights groups and environmentalists have protested the hunt and the practice of baiting the bears in order to make them easier targets. Hunt opponents have said that instructing people throw out their garbage more effectively would be a better method to control the animal’s’ aggressive behavior.

“The Fish and Game Council’s expanded trophy hunt, as well as its endorsement of baiting, is cruel, scientifically unjustified, at odds with public opinion, and caters to a small but vocal club of self-interested individuals who wrongly believe these animals do not deserve protections,” said Kathleen Schatzmann, New Jersey state director for The Humane Society of the United States.

The New Jersey Sierra Club, an environmental watchdog non-profit, has also decried the hunt as unnecessary and is against baiting the animals.

“Baiting bears encourages them to come to people for food. This is what causes nuisance and aggressive bears to begin with. Baiting will only increase the interactions that the government says are the reason for the hunt in the first place,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Why do we advocate against the public feeding bears but allow hunters to do so when it causes the same problems? Sitting in a tree stand listening to music on your iPhone and then shooting a bear that has come to feed is not sport.”