Posted on 12/08/2003 8:50:42 AM PST by ZULU
12/07/03 - Posted 11:23:58 PM from the Daily Record newsroom Snow may stymie bear hunting By Rob Jennings, Daily Record
Jerry Flannelly will awaken at 5 a.m. today to usher in the start of New Jersey's first bear hunting season in 33 years.
By 6:20 a.m., the 60-year-old Mount Arlington resident plans to be encamped on a friend's farm in Andover Township, hoping to land a bruin with his 12-gauge shotgun.
Flannelly, though, expressed doubts about his prospects Sunday afternoon, saying the weekend storm and freezing temperatures would hinder hunters this week.
"I think the snow is driving (bears) into the dens," said Flannelly.
Many of the approximately 5,800 hunters, including Flannelly, were issued permits for the six-day hunt will be using private property. Flannelly said his friend's farm totals approximately 60 acres and is near Route 517. The bear hunt is restricted to land north of Route 78 and west of Route 287.
John Rogalo of Stanhope, president of the Morris County chapter of the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen, predicted that bear hunters would flock to Wawayanda State Park in Vernon, the Berkshire Valley Wildlife Management Area and Wildcat Ridge in Rockaway Township.
The Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area and Hamburg Mountain also will be prime hunting grounds, Rogalo said.
"Bears like the mountains. They like the hills. They love to run through the country," said Rogalo, who planned to hunt today at Allamuchy Mountain State Park.
Whether the hunt will last the full six days -- state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell may order an early end -- or have a noticeable impact on the statewide bear population remains to be seen.
The state Fish and Game Council did not establish a target number when authorizing the hunt last summer, though one council member, George Howard of Pittstown, said at least 500 bear kills would be needed to offset the population's projected annual growth rate.
Several hunters and wildlife experts, though, doubted anywhere near that number will be killed in the hunt, even if it lasts the full six days. The heavy snowfall likely will result in more hibernating bears than would be expected for early December.
"If they're right on the margin of going into hibernation, the snow should be the trigger to do it," said Lynn Rogers, a well-known wildlife research biologist in Minnesota.
"On the other hand," Rogers said, "if any bears are moving, it makes them more visible with the tracks."
Rogalo said the hunt might barely make a dent on the bear population.
"If 50 bears are shot, it's going to be a lot -- unless it really warms up," Rogalo said. "You're not going to track them. They lay down and go to sleep."
Flannelly, a retired Jersey City police officer, said he has hunted bruins in New York, Pennsylvania and Canada but never in New Jersey, where the annual bear season was eliminated in 1970 when the bruin population neared extinction.
More than three decades later, DEP estimates that there are somewhere between 1,400 and 3,000 bears in New Jersey. The Fish and Game Council cited a growing risk to people and property damage in approving the bear hunt.
Animal rights activists are making their feelings known today, beginning with a 5 a.m. demonstration at Wawayanda State Park. Some have said they will videotape hunters -- hoping the images will turn the public against future hunts -- and may even shield bruins with their bodies.
"There are going to be people out there protecting bears, and people who actually want them to shoot bears so they can get it on film," said Lynda Smith of the Bear Education and Resource Group in Hewitt, which opposes the hunt.
In turn, Rogalo said some hunters are vowing to turn that tactic on its head by photographing hunters and using cell phones to file complaints with park rangers and conservation officers.
Campbell said last week that New Jersey's hunter harassment law might be applied even to those videotaping the hunters, with violators facing fines ranging from $100 to $500 for each offense.
Smith disagreed with Campbell's interpretation of the law.
"If we're walking in the woods with a camera, that's not hunter harassment if we don't interfere with the hunt," she said.
Campbell was so concerned about possible confrontations between activists and hunters that he revoked approximately 300 permits for children. That angered Rogalo, whose 10-year-old son had planned to join him in hunting bears.
"It took him months to do everything right to obtain that bear permit. It wasn't handed to him," Rogalo said.
Rogalo said his son will join him today but will not be joining in the hunt, unless Campbell's order is overturned.
Legal skirmishes concerning the bear hunt will continue even as the hunt gets underway. A federal judge who barred the hunt from the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Gap last Friday will hear new arguments on Tuesday.
Campbell will receive regular updates on the total number of dead bears and decide, at day's end, whether to allow the hunt to continue or call it off as of sundown Tuesday.
Animal right activists will be pressing for an early end.
"We're not giving up. Were not going away," Smith said.
Neither are Flannelly and thousands of other hunters, eager for the first opportunity in a generation to hunt bears in New Jersey.
Flannelly said that he would "eat the carcass, and probably make a rug" if he shot a bear -- quickly adding that trophy hunting was not his motive.
"I really believe there's going to be a tragedy in the near future," Flannelly said. "They're not afraid of people. And if you get a 300, 400 or 500 pound animal that's not afraid of people …"
Earlier this year, Flannelly installed three ladder stands, each rising 16 feet off the ground, for hunting at the Andover Township farm. Flannelly said he built the stands to hunt deer, but added that they might prove useful in targeting a bear.
Flannelly said he would respect the rules and not place bait near the stands.
"If you're going to do it, you do it right," Flannelly said.
Rob Jennings can be reached at rjenning@gannett.com or (973) 989-0652.
REASON?? New Jersy has become an escape zone for far leftist elements from the Five Boroughs of New York, fleeing their own madness. They bring with themselves the same idiotic philosophies which have made New York City unlivable. They include Greens, Animal Rights wackos, crypto-commies, socialists and anti-gun nuts. Like flies drawn to a rotting carcass, their surging numbers attract more of their own kind, resulting in what we are witnessing there over the bear hunt.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
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Well, that'll draw the bears, too!
They can do lunch with the watermelons!
That ought to work. If you run up against a brown bear, probably 25-40 of those ought to work.
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