[Huck]

I'm west of you, in Wantage Twp. We definitely don't have as many bears here as y'all have in the West Milford area. Seems most of the complaints come from that area as well. We've had bears go through our back yard, and they tour the garbage cans also. We definitely have to be careful with the garbage. I have two guinea pigs, and I sure don't want a bear breaking into my house and hurting them. So, no. I don't have any illusions about bears. But we don't get a lot of them here. So long as we take them into account, we've had no troubles. We just like them. Same way we like beavers and hawks and groundhogs, etc. Not every sentiment has to make rational sense, thank God.

Good luck with your bear problems. I hope there's enough left over so I'll still see 'em on my fishing trips, like I usually do, or up in high point st. park, or down in hamburg, or some of the other out of the way places I like to go.

[Malsua]

I'm actually in Highland lakes, "The other side of the mountain" from West Milford. So I've got the Pequannock watershed to the west and south and Waywanda Park to the North and East and sandwiched in between these reserves is my town.

Like you, I really don't have much of a problem with the bears and until just a few years ago, it really wasn't much of a problem. You'd see them once every few months and that'd be that. Towards the end of summer, I was seeing them almost every day and always on Monday(Garbage day).
That's excessive. If this hunt culls the heard and relieves feeding and territorial pressure from the bears that remain, it'll be better for us and better for the bears.