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BY PAT SUMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
COMMENTARY
Governor Christie reportedly said at a press conference Tuesday morning that he's open to scientific recommendations from Fish and Wildlife officials to end the bear hunt before Saturday, when it's scheduled to end. More than 260 bears were killed on Monday, the first day.
Here is a chance for the Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) — if they're now sufficiently sated by the number of bears slaughtered — to trot out "scientific" reasons for an early end to the hunt. It should be easy to do: they're the same scientific reasons used by hunt opponents hoping to prevent the hunt.
Besides numerous charges of corruption behind the decision for this year's bear hunt, science has from the beginning strongly suggested that a bear hunt is not the way to "manage" bears in New Jersey.
1 — The numbers tell it. In 2005, when the last bear hunt took place, Dr. Edward Tavss, of Rutgers University, demonstrated that "in every site studied, hunting failed to decrease complaints, while non-lethal methods at those same sites worked to reduce complaints."More recently, in her report, "The Bear Hunt is Not About Public Safety," Susan Russell reported that non-lethal bear co-existence programs have proven to work in the US and Canada; they are "far superior to random, recreational killing."
2 — Lowering bear fertility is the best way to manage the bear population and reproduction rates drop when food is not readily available. If the laws about trash disposal and feeding bears were strictly enforced — and deer hunters prevented from corn-baiting, which draws bears — the bear numbers would drop.
3 — Readily available information about behavior patterns of New Jersey black bears indicates they are basically timid creatures. Those used to dealing with the bears have come up with numerous ways — other than slaughter — to peacefully co-exist with them.
It is well worth noting that no bear has injured, let alone killed a human in New Jersey.
4 — Defining statistics as a branch of science, try on these stats: New Jersey's wildlife watchers outnumber hunters 20-1 and outspend hunters 5-1. Hunters represent a fraction of 1% of the population, yet they prevail in the very division that recommended a bear hunt to Governor Christie. (What's wrong with this [statistical] picture?)
What are you waiting for, Governor?
RELATED
New Jersey's bear hunt is not about public safety
Activists against imminent New Jersey bear hunt fighting multi-front battle
N.J. bear hunt inching closer despite charges state DFW ‘cooked books' to get approval
Freelance writer Pat Summers also blogs at www.AnimalBeat.blogspot.com.
In the last year, one neighbor, the owner of a family farm farther down the mountain, couldn't keep a 400 pound male black bear out of the sweet corn, a woman at the local feed store told me that a bear had just killed all her laying hens, and a beekeeper of 50 years who lives just around the corner from me wouldn't even speak about the damage when I stopped by for honey. "I just can't talk about it," he said. We're talking about people's livelihoods here, not just trash cans by the road.
And then there are the home invasions. Two friends of mine have had bears rip through the screen door and enter the house looking for food while people were in the house. The one friend made the mistake of leaving the backdoor open to let the kitchen cool off after roasting the Thanksgiving turkey, which she had set on the counter. She went into the dining room to set the table and came back into the kitchen to find the screen door ripped open, and her turkey with a bear in the back yard.
The reality is there has always been a bear hunt in New Jersey. It's called SSS--shoot, shovel, and shut up. I heard of a farmer in northern Passaic County some years back who lost two dogs, two goats, a pig and a horse to the bears, and when the state indicated that there was nothing it could do, this farmer took to sitting up on the porch roof on moonlit summer nights and shooting the bears that crossed the property. At last count, this farmer had killed 17. Farmers up here have always just killed the problem bears, gotten out the backhoe, and buried the bodies out on the property someplace. At least with a sanctioned hunt, the state biologists have a chance to count the dead and assess their health, age, weight, sex, and so on.
Why don’t more farmers speak up? Who needs the anonymous death threats that people up here have received from some animal rights activists?