Get me the BCLU, Pronto!
Posted on 08/08/2005 1:32:51 PM PDT by neverdem
TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey wildlife officials are considering a plan to create bear-free zones as a way to manage the state's surging black bear population.
The unusual approach would make urban and other densely populated areas off-limits to bears and restrict the bruin population in regions such as southern New Jersey, where the bears are far less plentiful than in the state's mountainous northwest region.
"Most people agree, you don't want bears in areas like Hudson County, Union County and Middlesex County _ all urban areas with no real habitat for bears," Len Wolgast, a wildlife biology professor and member of the state's Fish and Game Council, told The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark.
"The problem is, what about areas like the Pinelands, where we already have some bears and plenty of habitat for them, but where some people don't want them to become established?"
The Fish and Game Council, which sets the state's hunting seasons, is voting Tuesday on whether to approve a bear hunt for later this year. New Jersey in 2003 held its first bear hunt in 33 years, but there was no hunt in 2004.
State Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell, though, has said he is willing to consider a hunt this year, and acting Gov. Richard J. Codey has said he has no personal objections to a hunt.
Once scarce, bears now number in the thousands in New Jersey. The animals are increasingly coming into conflict with the state's suburban residents, sometimes killing pets or breaking into homes as they forage for food. In mid-July, a bear injured a sleeping camper along the Appalachian Trail at High Point State Park.
The bear zoning proposal is among a number of plans being considered for an overall black bear management program, which was mandated last year by the...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Bears running amok in Jersey...
Clearly Bush's fault (that naughty little monkey!)
ping
Get me the BCLU, Pronto!
So who do they send out and tell the bears where they can and cannot go and what bear reads signs anymore...
THIS IS BLATANT SPECIES-ISM! CALL THE A.C.L.U. IMMEDIATELY!
Exactly!
This totally sounds like scrappleface.com. Who is going to inform the bears?
NY wildlife chief urges Garden State to hold bear hunt
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey' neighbor to the north is urging it to hold a bear hunt this winter to help control the growing number of black bears that range between the Empire and Garden states.
Denise Sheehan, New York's environmental conservation commissioner, called for a hunt in a letter to New Jersey Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell.
"Managed, successful hunting seasons in both New York and New Jersey, coupled with educational programs and nuisance abatement protocols, are the keys to the sound management of this magnificent resource," Sheehan wrote in the July 14 letter.
The letter comes a month after Campbell said he would consider a hunt for this December and perhaps annually.
"Wildlife management is a community effort that crosses state lines," Campbell's spokeswoman, Elaine Makatura, said Wednesday.
Last year, Campbell blocked a hunt, resulting in a court clash with the independent state panel that sets the state's hunting seasons.
Under a subsequent state Supreme Court decision, Campbell and the game panel were told to develop a management plan that outlined an acceptable size for the bear population and the methods to control it.
Campbell is now reviewing a draft policy that proposes a hunt this year. If he approves it, the game panel will be relatively free to set annual bear hunts.
New York and Pennsylvania have held regulated, annual bear hunts for some time. New Jersey's last hunt was in December 2003, the first since 1970, when annual bear seasons were stopped because the animals had become scarce.
Hunters in New Jersey killed 328 bears in 2003.
Trouble bruin in Joisey . . I know: bear porta-potties, sani-johns! Unemployed Dims need work, so training our ursine friends, why--could be grisly but also a win-win solution!
(pulling for bears)
I would think they would just ban the smoking bears or those that drive SUV's...or smoking bears that drive SUV's.
I can hear PETA screaming now.......
"So who do they send out and tell the bears where they can and cannot go and what bear reads signs anymore... "
duh.. the guy with the high-powered rifle and hunting license :)
good thing it's not massoftwo$h1+s.. swimmer wouldn't want people using armour-piercing ammo on the bears. it'd have to be .22s.
BTTT
Trouble is the bears are going to go where the grub is.
Bump to NJ Freeper. You ready to try for a rug this year, NJF?
FAR better to let the bears do whatever they want and declare NJ a Democrat free zone.
Soon, common sense and the coincidental lack of democrat critters running amok will will result in a Republican state, free of bears.
Think that is sarcasm?
The tough thing is that the Jersey Black Bears are blending in to their habitat, making them difficult to spot and catch.
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