Are There Too Many Black Bears in New Jersey? 2010

On Fathers Day, 6/20/2010, in a neighborhood, Vernon, these “Three Bears” were on the front lawn of a house eating mulberries. They weren’t “three little bears” as you can see and the large male didn’t exactly look like he was worrying about being out there noontime where everyone could see him. 

Just one empty lot away was four or five children, ages (4) to (7) playing in their front yard. Someone drove back to alert the parents but the children were already inside.

Sightings such as this have increased, reports of attacks on livestock and domestic pets as well. Two bears were recently shot by police for breaking into houses in Morris County.

Yet word has it that the anti’s are flooding the Governor’s office with letters attempting to once again stop the planned 2010 black bear management hunt.

We can only remain confident that Governor Christi, a no non-sense Governor that uses common sense has made a decision to support a hunt and will not be swayed by the misleading rhetoric and letters that falsely indicate a lack of support for the hunt.

These letters, carefully composed and sent by both the anti-hunting/animal right groups are much like the votes for American Idol. The host of that show is quick to note the millions of voters called in to vote, but fails to disclose that any person can vote as many times as they like. A person supporting a particular contestant can vote over and over again for that same person.

This year is it; the black bears are totally out of control because we have too many and not enough natural habitant to keep them within their own range. The majority of citizens in this state do support a black bear hunt as part of wildlife population management. That support was evident when the anti’s waged an all out campaign against candidate Christi because he voiced publicly his support of the black bear hunt. Now he is Governor Christi, made it into office without their support and can support this hunt because it is right, he knows it and owes nothing to anti’s that have been able to bring into play the threat of lost votes to other Governors.

The garbage argument; surely, black bears will find garbage, because there is not enough natural food to go around. And YES! Garbage should be properly contained, but garbage is not sperm needed for the black bears to propagate, it is just an attraction for overpopulated black bears. So as there is a need to contain garbage there is a need to reduce the number of black bears.

In this particular case there was no garbage just a good old fashioned mulberry tree. Ever see a mulberry tree or cherry tree for that matter, there is absolutely no way to clean them off the ground, like apples or pears and the one black bear was right up on the limbs of the mulberry tree picking them off.

There are no longer “black-bear experts” that can tell us that black bears are not dangerous, because this is a new year, a new time and a new black bear. No longer shy, no longer in fear of humans and not enough land to absorb the continued growth of their population. They are unpredictable at best and from killing livestock and domestic pets, breaking into garages and houses it is inevitable that a human is going to fall into harms way sooner or later.

We have a BP oil leak that is ruining the environment and economy, the people, Senators and Congress are blaming everyone back to President Regan, Bush and President Obama as well for letting things get to a point that a tragedy like this could take place.

Listen up, we in New Jersey have been warned, the Black Bear has warned us, like this brazen male on the lawn of a residence at 12 noon, take a good look at his face, NO FEAR, he is at the top of the food chain in our state, always was, but never knew it like he does today. So when a tragedy finally happens let’s be sure we made an attempt to avoid it, SUPPORT A BLACK BEAR HUNT NOW.

Mike D.