Hungry Bear looking for food

 

It seemed like only years ago we were able to enjoy the freedom of owning a piece of property wherein we enjoyed such little pleasures as fruit trees and backyard barbecues. Guests conversing while watching some children running about with a puppy joining the festivities.  A variety of birds passing up the backyard feeders to steal at a piece of bread or potato chip left on the ground by some youngsters playing tag or moving about; or perhaps from some sloppy adult.

 

 

Adult conversations these days surround the economy, fuel prices, the election, and the war; serious concerns for all of us. Some gather in the backyard others drift off to the porch or garage wherever they can be out of children’s hearing.

The children somewhat shielded by age just enjoy the beauty of a day with family and friends.

Oh yes, those were the days as we heard our own parents say so many times.

 

Now lets’ fast forward to today, for a number of reasons that no longer matter, this once welcomed freedom has been infringed upon by the “overpopulated” black bear.  Why do we have an overpopulation problem? Because anti-hunters and animal-rights groups have infiltrated New Jersey and convinced vote hungry politicians that we should alter our lives to accommodate the wild black bear.

 

Let’s look at some of the changes:

 

Store garbage in bear-proof containers (they mean bear resistant as bear proof hardly exists), or store garbage in your garage.

Now this is reasonable only we need to advise the bear’s that garages are off limits and breaking into them is a crime. I guess the adults will have to stop using the garage for conversations or be willing to include the black bear in the discussions.

 

Keep food indoors or in airtight and order-free containers.

Sure either the guests can go inside each time they want to eat or sort through a variety of airtight lids and forget the appetizing order of food just close your eyes and swallow.

 

Put away picnic leftovers; clean BBQ grills.

Well don’t know of many that leave leftovers outside, clean the grill of course, and get the order of cooked food off the grill, it will never happen. Therefore, a new option should be offered, discard the grill and buy a new one for each BBQ.

 

Keep pet food inside, and bird feeders away.

OK, the pet food is easy, but climbing up trees to take in birdfeeders, don’t think so. Just imagine bird seed was the most popular and sold food for years as people enjoyed feeding these harmless birds and watching them scurry about feeder to feeder. Is there any concern for these creatures? Nah, that’s for the birds.

 

 

Remove cosmetic fragrances and other attractants.

Oh well! There goes Grandma and Aunt Millie kicked out of the BBQ for overdosing with Chantilly.

 

Pick-up any residual fruits or nuts from trees on your property.

Great, in addition to working, cleaning the house, taking care of children and figuring out how to make ends meet, we should go out each day and police residual droppings from fruit and nut trees; nuts to that.

 

Harvest gardens immediately as vegetables mature; keep vegetable gardens free of vegetable wastes.

Now this is good however, how do we convince the bears that eating vegetables before they ripen is wrong, might give them a bellyache. I don’t know about the second part never thought of a vegetables bathroom habits.

 

Locate compost piles, gardens and fruit orchards at least 50 yards or as far as possible from forest tree lines or other sources of cover for bears.

Well don’t know if the neighbors’ will like the location and if the bears will mind travelling so far from underneath decks.

 

Keep a close watch on children, and teach them what to do if they encounter a bear.

Now here is the best of all, our backyards were a place where children could play in the security of private property within earshot of the parents. Children, according to age were taught to deal with strangers, human strangers. Now we are supposed to take a small 50 pound child and somehow teach them how to deal with a wild black bear that weighs anywhere from 100 to 700 pounds and at any weight capable of catching a child and seriously mauling and killing them. On top of all this we are to explain to these tots that the bears are not dangerous, but timid and shy and they can share our space. Come-on now.

 

This is the non-sense we in New Jersey must go through because of all the issues created by misguided people that mislead innocent people, which really do enjoy wildlife, into placing this dangerous, carnivorous mammal in the same category as a deer or rabbit.

 

We will never, never be able to coexist with black bears unless they are hunted to a manageable population wherein they retreat to the remaining backwoods and return to there once shy personality.

 

It is not selfish on anyone’s part to expect to enjoy the freedom of their own backyards, to limit dangers to the lowest possible levels for themselves, family and friends. To expect our state biologists and Fish and Wildlife professionals to establish hunting regulations to control wildlife populations, especially dangerous game like the black bear.

 

 

 

Anti-hunters and animal-rights groups are constantly overstepping the boundaries when they really believe that a wild animal/mammal has more rights than a human being. These groups for the most part use politics to further a cause that in the case of the black bear puts human life in danger, they draw contributions from the rich and famous that live in the security of their castles, looking for a path to heaven through some cause, any cause.

Shame of this is that these same groups do good work on other animal issues that have merit, like “domestic” animal rights for horses, dogs, cat, etc. They are not needed in the “wild-kingdom” we have professional biologists all around the country and the endangered species laws they establish and monitor are successful, as with the New Jersey Black Bear.

 

We all need to look at this, a black bear being “culled” to a level that enables them to thrive in their own natural habitant or a child or adult being mauled or killed again, as is happening, because we put wild life before human life. What kind of sensible, caring human being would opt for the later?

 

Lastly, as for sure some anti-hunter will attempt to put “the-hunting-spin” on this issue, hunting is a legal right and heritage of this free country and in this free country one has the right to participate or not. Hunting is also a wildlife management tool, in fact, the only proven method.

Sterilization, is a failure and an anti’s smoke screen for stalling the inevitable, a hunt. Criticizing the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife and/or our professional biologists is just another flaw in the character of these groups. These professionals have had to listen to criticism not only from the anti’s but from the politicians that these groups have succeeded in influencing.

Here we have highly educated professionals that must attempt to perform the job assignments they were trained for while walking on egg shells to somehow create a balance with hostile anti-hunting and animal-rights groups.

Some of these groups are pushing to have members of there organizations take a seat on the F&G Council. Try reversing this and ask them to place a hunter on their boards; it will never happen.

 

Support the biologists and F&G that use science instead of politics and emotions to level the playing field and create the proper balance of wild game to humans.

Mike D

 

 

 

 

 

In the past the Black Bear has only two predators to fear the Brown Bear and the hunter. However, over the past (10) years the black bear has faced a new threat; the tree-hugging human community.  

 

Anti-hunting and animal-rights groups have joined forces to use the black bear as a platform for their core existence. Although, having lost battles around the country they found a home in New Jersey where they succeeded in 2000 by successfully turning the black bear overpopulation problem into a political football. Governor Christie Whitman was the first causality as she gave into the pressure; casting aside the New Jersey Fish and Game professionals decision to hold a 2000 black bear hunt in order to reduce and balance the black bear population to a level that would allow the safe co-existence between bears and humans.

We know that in 1970 the black bear hunting seasons were eliminated as the estimated population was at one hundred (100). The cause for this decline was listed as development of land coupled with hunting.

Bear roams near a residential area in New Jersey

 

The New Jersey Fish and Game and hunters have been targeted by anti-hunting and animal rights groups and used to create a situation wherein the real problem of “black bear overpopulation” was masked by putting the emphasis on the “Fish&Game Council’s looking to protect their jobs” and “hunter’s looking to trophy hunt black bears”.

 

Nothing can be further from the truth or so irrelevant to the overpopulation problem. If not for the efforts of the NJF&G whose conservation efforts brought the black bear back from the estimated 100 to numbers between 2000 to 3000 and hunters that respected the F&G biologists decisions and participated in the non-hunting laws and regulations then we would not be having this black bear overpopulation issue today.

 

However, while the hunting community was observing the rules many tree-huggers were behind the scenes feeding and baiting bears into areas for the purpose of observing and photographing the once timid and shy black bear creating a “Zoo” atmosphere within the boundaries of their homes and land. This situation has contributed to the food conditioned bears that lead to aggressive behavior.

 

As the human population continued to increase so did the development of land to accommodate both housing and commercial building. In areas where black bears may have been fed new houses cropped up and with the increased housing a new food source; garbage. This coupled with black bear population growth is where we began to experience the change in black bear activity and behavior.

This is best explained by the testimony of a known bear expert Stephen Herrero who recanted a conclusion stated in his 1985 book to the effect that black bears were essentially benevolent. Herrero was called for a deposition involving the 1996 lawsuit against the state of Arizona wherein a captured, tagged and relocated black bear returned to it’s place of origin, nearly 100 miles, mauling and disfiguring a (16) year old girl participating in a 4H outing. The state settled for 2.5 million dollars and you can believe that the girl and her family would gladly have given that up to have stopped that life altering attack.

 

Herrero stated under oath; I do think that there is more danger than I realized from food conditioned, habituated, and aggressive bears, the combination of the three. And if I were rewriting that chapter, I would emphasize that there are three ingredients, habituations, the food conditioning, and rewarding aggressive behavior over time that increased the chances of injury… I have learned since the publication of the book that there is more involvement in serious injuries by black bears than I knew of at the time that I wrote the book. (Knochel v. State, Arizona Superior Court, Civ. No. 98-09396, Deposition of Stephen Herrero, January 6, 1999, at pp. 218-219)

 

So we know that the development of land is pushing the black bear out of their natural habitant. We also know that the population of both humans and the black bear is increasing. We know that garbage has become a food source and efforts are clearly in place as people are making every effort to secure garbage, including stronger shed and garage doors as bear have progressed beyond garbage pail and bear resistant containers.

 

We know that birds can no longer be fed, as the harmless and safe feeding of birds now attracts the black bear to our homes. Backyard barbecues’ require a people watch both during and after cooking as bears seek out the smell of food. Home baked pies and cookies now must be secured in smell proof containers less we have black bear visitors in our kitchens. Schoolyards now have watch posts and black bear drills, parents wait at bus stops protecting their children from “lunch-bag” seeking bears. Developments near forests have parents leaving car doors unlocked so children may reach the safety of a vehicle should a bear wander into the area. Small children must be kept inside along with domestic pets; livestock requires flock guards such as dogs or Llamas and all of these precautions will still do nothing to stem the growth of the black bear population or the inevitable tragedies we have already seen and are still to come.

 

All of this at a time when the economy and conditions in the US created the need for people use and enjoy the privacy of their own backyards and state and public parklands.

 

We have to face the issue now and that is there is simply no way whatsoever to allow the black bear population to continue to grow. There is only so much land to be safely shared by humans and a wild black bear and that safety zone has been surpassed. There is “absolutely” no other way to reduce the black bear population and maintain the proper balance than hunting. This is no longer about hunting, although this is a legal right of our citizens, it is about “population-control”.

 

All of the so-called bear-education bear resistant garbage cans, adverse conditioning will have no effect on the problem; “There is not enough land to support the current black bear population”. Sterilization is a proven failure and has no place in the population control equation.

 

The education we need is that “never” should politics, emotions or personal preferences of our leaders be allowed to interfere with the decisions of educated and successful professional biologists. No other state allows this to happen, both the former and current Governors of Maryland simply stated to all; we understand and respect the emotions regarding the hunting of black bears in Maryland but as recommended by the F&G the hunt will go on; and it did.

 

Our New Jersey F&G professionals calculated and brought back the black bear, now we must allow them to maintain this great mammal to a level where they can roam in their own habitant. Neither the F&G nor hunters would allow the black bear to be hunted to extinction or anywhere near it. Need proof? Look at the successful work both have done to bring the black bear to the current levels.

 

In the final analysis, do we gamble with human life for the sake of an anti-hunting/animal-rights movement? Do we allow inexperienced politicians to override trained, educated and experienced wildlife biologists? Is any family out there or any person willing to chance the life of a human being over that of a wild mammal?

 

This is just plain common sense, let the F&G professionals perform their job, let the hunters do the work and at the same time make good use of the game through consumption as a healthy food source. Let the black bear population be managed to a safe co-existing level and stay that way.

Save Human Life; Support the Hunt.

 – Mike D