| Wednesday, June 18, 2003 |
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Photo by: DON SMITH  West Milford Police Officer Steve Stratton preparing to shoot non-lethal rubber bullets at a female bear that was trapped at a township home Tuesday. |
For some of New Jersey's black bears, Tuesday was a day of life, death, and reconditioning.
More living proof that black bears are coming too close for comfort could be found in the trap that state Fish and Wildlife officers set at Kristine Flynn's house in West Milford on June 10. Fish and Wildlife arrived and tranquilized the bear, then set her free late Tuesday afternoon - but only after reconditioning her by pumping rubber bullets at her backside.
A bear that wandered into a home in nearby Vernon on Tuesday wasn't so lucky. She was shot and killed by Fish and Wildlife officers after she left the house and went into the woods - an action by the officers that outraged members of an animal rights group, who contend the state has become trigger happy.
Black bears are protected in New Jersey, and state policy says they can be killed only when posing an imminent danger to people, pets, or property.
"That bear posed absolutely no threat to anyone," said , Joanne Floridia an activist who lives about a block from the Callan Road house that the bear entered. "He had already left the house when he was shot. That bear was known in the neighborhood. This is an outrage."
Floridia, a member of the anti-hunting organization Bear Education And Resource, went to the scene and challenged the reasoning for the killing.
The wild day began around 8:30 a.m., when Flynn heard what she said "sounded like a guillotine" outside her converted log cabin on Kashaqua Trail near Greenwood Lake. It was the sound of a door of a barrel trap slamming shut on a 200-pound female bear and wrapping her in a wire mesh.
The female was apparently in heat - four other bears that had picked up her scent came into the Flynns' yard while Fish and Wildlife officers and West Milford police were tranquilizing her. The officers also decided one of the suitors, a large male, needed to be tranquilized.
"I'm kind of glad that Fish and Game was here when all this happened, because now they know what we are going through," Flynn said. "Now they know what it's like to live here."
Even before the trap door was sprung Tuesday, the Flynn house was the political crossroads in the debate over what New Jersey should do about its burgeoning black-bear problem. On June 5, Flynn's husband, Patrick, shot a bear after it tried to enter his kitchen while his wife was cooking dinner. The bear limped off into the woods and was found the next day by Fish and Wildlife officers, who destroyed the animal.
A week later, Fish and Wildlife returned, set up the trap at the Flynns' home, and issued Patrick Flynn a summons for illegally shooting a bear. An autopsy showed that the bear had been hit in the rear at a range of about 15 yards, suggesting that the animal was attempting to flee. But the Flynns contend the animal was no more than 15 feet away when shot, having turned his head back toward the house as if preparing to reapproach it.
Flynn is due to appear in West Milford Municipal Court on July 1.
The state estimates that there are as many as 3,200 black bears living in New Jersey. Many have lost their fear of humans and found that eating out of garbage cans is easier than foraging in the forest.
The state Fish and Game Council has proposed allowing a bear hunt to coincide with shotgun season for deer in December to thin the population, but animal rights groups have vowed to stop it. So each incident involving bears and humans becomes politically explosive.
As policy, the state's goal is to recondition the bears to stay away from humans by teaching them a painful lesson using rubber bullets and explosives. But some of the bears don't seem to be getting the message.
The Vernon bear, which had been tagged No. 71 by the state, was a known garbage picker in the area around Barry Lakes, Floridia said.
"I would see her in garbage cans and I would chase her away, sometimes popping my umbrellas, sometimes even chasing her with my own car," Floridia said. "But some people are still not maintaining their garbage properly. On Monday morning, there were plastic bags ripped apart and scattered all over the road."
Bradley Campbell, state Department of Environmental Protection commissioner, defended the decision to kill the bear in Vernon.
"I think it's a little unreasonable to say that our biologists were quick to the trigger," Campbell said. "Obviously, killing a bear is always the last resort, but that bear had been exhibiting that kind of behavior for two years."
Campbell pointed out that four bears have been put to death this year, as compared with eight at this time last year. But members of the Bear Education And Resource group say they will protest the killing at a rally at Route 23 and Canistear Road in Vernon on Saturday morning.
"I don't care if I have to lay down in the middle of Route 23,"
Floridia said. "I am waiting for the day when the state will begin managing its wildlife instead of just killing it."
Richard Cowen's e-mail address is cowen@northjersey.com