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A Hunter's Encounter with a Stealthy Bruin - We dropped anchor and casually glassed the shores as we readied our gear. “Bear.” Tony was right; there was a nice bear on the beach just off the bow. It was feeding in front of a small island at the tip of a tidal flat. We quickened our pace, dropped into the raft and motored toward shore. It was just before 5 p.m. on a Friday evening, so we had more time that night plus the entire next day, so when this bear spooked, and spook it would, there would be other...

This guy gets ready to jump out from his stand to spear a bear. What could go wrong right? Check out this bear spearing fail that could have turned deadly in a heartbeat. In a video shared on Facebook by Mitchel J Yonkman we can almost hear this guy saying hold my beer while I take care of business. Not sure if this guy is a pro spear hunter like Youtuber Tim Wells Bow Hunter. By the look of this bear setup, he may have waited a long time for this bear to come along. When the black bear is...

Before the state approved its last bear hunt in 2005, hundreds of farmers, homeowners, animal rights protesters and hunters voiced their opinions in a final, raucous hearing that had to be moved to the State Museum auditorium in Trenton to accommodate the crowd. The scene was far different today, when the state Fish and Game Council voted unanimously — and with considerably less fanfare — to recommend a six-day bear hunt for northwest New Jersey in December. Gathering in a small room in Monmouth County, the council met before just 20 people, most of them state employees. Three people spoke...

Associated Press TRENTON, N.J. -- A group favoring a New Jersey bear hunt as a way to control the bruin population is considering filing a lawsuit against the state because it has not issued hunting permits, a lawyer with the group said Tuesday. Gov. Jon S. Corzine has not yet decided whether to approve a hunt this year. Douglas Burdin, a lawyer with Safari Club International, a national hunting and conservation group, said Tuesday that a lawsuit "probably will be filed within days," seeking to make the state issue the permits. "The bear hunt is currently authorized under New Jersey...

VERNON -- Four animal rights activists involved in a confrontation with hunters at Wawayanda State Park during last year's bear hunt were found guilty Thursday of harassment. The most prominent, Angela Metler of Vernon, drew a 40-day jail term. Municipal Court Judge C. William Bowkley Jr. found that the 49-year-old Metler, Terry Fritzges, 57, of East Windsor, Janet Pizsar, 53, of Milburn, and Albert Kazemian, 49, also of Vernon, were determined to disrupt the state-sanctioned bear hunt when they entered the park on the morning of Dec. 7. Besides sentencing Metler to jail time, Bowkley handed her and the others...

ISSAQUAH - The Issaquah man who claims he shot a black bear in self-defense near his home Monday night is now under investigation by the Department of Fish and Wildlife for being a felon in possession of a firearm and for hunting a bear out of season. King County Sheriff's deputies, officers with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms served a search warrant Wednesday at Aaron Enright's home in the rural High Point neighborhood near Issaquah. They seized the 10-gauge shotgun he used to shoot the bear, a .22-caliber rifle...

A black bear chased, caught and mauled a bicycle rider on a mountain trail in Canada's oldest and most popular national park, and was shot and killed when it refused to leave the area, a warden said. The biker, Greg Flaaten, 41, a Web administrator for the town of Banff, was being treated for severe arm injuries at Foothills Hospital in Calgary following the attack, and reconstructive surgery in the biceps and triceps area was scheduled Monday. Authorities initially feared Flaaten might lose his arm, but that concern was eased when a key artery was found to be intact, maintaining...

A 29-year-old Farisita man suffered bruises and possible nerve damage to his neck and shoulder this week when he tangled with a black bear on a private ranch near Stonewall about 25 miles west of Trinidad. Harold Cerda stopped to use an outhouse on the ranch. While he was away from his car, a bear climbed through an open window and started to eat Cerda's lunch that was on the front seat. As Cerda came out of the outhouse, the bear was walking in his direction and took a swing at Cerda, knocking him down. Michael Seraphin, spokesman for the...

A black bear was caught in a forest recreation area Sunday and was being sent to a veterinary school to determine if it was the same animal that attacked a family, killing a 6-year-old girl. Authorities found a bear in the same trap where they detected paw prints on Saturday in the remote Cherokee National Forest Chilhowee Recreation Area... The bear, which was captured near the site of the attack, looked to be the same weight as the 350- to 400-pound bear that attacked a mother and her two children on a trail in the recreation area on Thursday... The...

Authorities hunted Friday for a black bear that picked up a 2-year-old boy in its mouth and mauled his mother, critically injuring them before killing the child's 6-year-old sister. Witnesses told authorities the bear picked up the boy in its mouth while the mother and other visitors tried to fend it off with sticks and rocks, said Dan Hicks, a spokesman for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. When the bear attacked, the girl ran away, authorities said. Rescuers found the girl's body about 100 yards down the trail from the falls. A bear was standing over her. "Allegedly, after the...

Six animal rights advocates, arrested in December during a protest at Wawayanda State Park on the final day of the 2005 black bear hunt, went on trial Tuesday in Vernon Municipal Court. The six -- Lynda Smith, Elenor Hoffman, William Crain, Catherine McCartney, Kristen Sondej and David Stewart -- are all charged with obstruction for allegedly jumping a plastic fence that park police had set up to corral demonstrators, then sitting down on the pavement before being led away in handcuffs. The trial began after all six pleaded not guilty before Municipal Court Judge C. William Bowkley Jr. The state...

THE bear hunting season in New Jersey has long been over, but it looks as if the controversy will probably never end. The hunt is coming under fire again in the Garden State as anti-hunters have introduced a bill that would ban bear hunting, fund the animal rights agenda and strip the wildlife agency of its management authority. Assemblyman Michael Panter, D-Red Bank, introduced AB 525, a bill that would take away the Fish and Game Commission's and Dept. of Environmental Protection's authority to regulate bear hunting. Bear management would instead be placed in the hands of a Black Bear...

About 280 bears were killed in New Jersey's six-day hunt aimed at thinning out the burgeoning population, which ended with more than 100 protesters waiting for hunters to emerge from the woods with their kills. The hunt ended shortly after dusk Saturday with fewer bears killed than the 328 bagged in 2003, according to preliminary figures. Black bears, once near extinction in the state, are now a common sight, menacing people, scampering through yards and rummaging in trash. "I believe we'll now see a reduction in nuisance complaints, a reduction in serious complaints and that we'll get more information about...

Bear hunt begins with at least 54 kills, tempers high By JOHN CURRAN The Associated Press VERNON, N.J. - Braving freezing cold and irate animal rights activists, camouflage-clad bear hunters hit the fields and forests here Monday, taking aim at a species whose recovery in New Jersey has gone from conservation success to emerging public safety threat. Black bears have rebounded from near-extinction to become familiar sights across the nation's most densely populated state - rummaging through trash, menacing people and scampering through yards. With residents' complaints mounting, New Jersey's second bear hunt in 35 years was approved as a...

Animal rights extremists gone wild By Cam EdwardsNov 30, 2005 Animal rights activists are going to court to try and stop the New Jersey black bear hunt, scheduled to take place next week.  As much as I hate to do it, I applaud these activists for operating within the bounds of the law, even if the ideas they promote exist outside the bounds of common sense.    Of course, for every one of these activists who operate inside the law, there are others who have no qualms about violating the law; threatening violence, committing acts of vandalism, even advocating death...

NEW Jersey's second bear hunt in 35 years will begin in December, but it doesn't sound as if it will go off without the usual outcry from animal rights groups, some of whom have threatened to cause some problems. Hunters will be able to shoot bears over six days starting Dec. 5. The hunt is to take place in a roughly 1,600-square-mile territory in the north of the state. "I think that public safety and sound wildlife management are the winners," said state environmental chief Bradley Campbell, who approved the plan after scuttling last year's hunt during a power struggle...

On November 14, 2005, DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell approved the Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy for New Jersey. The document was drafted by the NJ Fish and Game Council and subsequently revised after extensive public comments and a public hearing. The policy meets the mandate and requirements established by the NJ Supreme Court in its most recent opinion on black bear management.

| Push is on for a new bear huntFriday, September 9, 2005 By KATHLEEN CARROLLSTAFF WRITER There are too many black bears in New Jersey, and allowing annual hunts is the best way to stabilize their numbers, according to a New Jersey Fish and Game Council report released Thursday.In its comprehensive Black Bear Management Plan, the first such policy analysis such 1997, the council reported that contraception and relocation are too unproven, costly and slow."Problems associated with black bears will continue to grow unless the population is stabilized," the report cautioned. "A tool that will quickly reduce the population...

Associated Press TRENTON, N.J. - The state's environmental chief has final say over whether a bear hunt can take place in New Jersey, not the council that planned the hunt, the state's highest court ruled Monday. The decision by the state Supreme Court gave Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell his second victory in the most recent spat over bear hunting in the Garden State. Bradley successfully opposed a hunt late last year after the Fish and Game Council had approved one. He was bolstered by a high court decision that said the state needed to adopt a comprehensive bear management policy...

Buoyed by the defeat of a planned black bear hunt this year, one animal rights group has announced it has a statewide hunting ban in its sights. The newly formed Animal Protection Political Action Committee hopes to craft a network of more than 50,000 voters to oppose pro-hunting legislation and candidates. It's creation comes less than one week after the state Supreme Court halted the six-day bruin season, ruling Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell had the authority to stop it. "The (National Rifle Association) and all these other groups pull together all of these people who are 100...