That's not what the idiot who refused to give his name said:
The official said e-mails the agency has received from animal-rights activists indicated that young hunters would be the target of planned protests when the hunt begins. "It's not a matter of the youths being safe to participate in the hunt," the DEP official said. "It's a matter of their maturity in judgment when they are faced with the possibility of angry confrontation.
He doesn't want to do his job and keep the "angry confronters" away from the kids and out of the damned woods, so the coward bans the kids. He knows what's being planned, and he doesn't trust any kid not to fire in the face of it. But he is taking the side of the protestors. Utterly.