New Jersey Black Bear Hunting Season Begins

The annual New Jersey black bear hunting season has opened today and will continue until shortly after sunset on Saturday, Dec. 13, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP is predicting a harvest in this season similar to that of 2013, when 251 bears were taken, the DEP said in a news release. Black bear hunting zones are located in parts of Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties, plus a small area of western Bergen County.

“We anticipate a very safe and professionally managed black bear hunt, which is just one component of the New Jersey’s Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy,” said DEP Commissioner Bob Martin in the news release. “The state’s overall goal is to reduce the number of bears to a more manageable number, while improving public safety by reducing bear encounters with people.”

No more than 10,000 bear hunting permits will be issued for this year’s hunt. The DEP expects more than 7,000 permits will have been issued by Monday morning, the release said.

The DEP hopes to reduce human encounters with bears through education, research, bear-habitat analysis and protection and non-lethal bear management techniques, and a bear feeding ban, the news release said. The first black bear taken this season was a 165-pound adult female in Vernon Township, Sussex County.

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