Reader suspects trophies are reason for bear hunt
One thing that is certain, NJ residents will never know the truth about bear incidents. The Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) has control over the media: authors and columnists, so reports are routinely biased, exaggerated and they intentionally omit critical information. For example, in Nov. 2007, a dog returned home severely injured, suspected to be by a bear, and had to be euthanized. The DFW offered the dog owners a bear trap to capture and kill the bear. The owners declined the trap stating that they did not know if their dog had acted aggressively, cornered the bear and if the bear had to act in self-defense. Larry Herrighty, Assistant Director of DFW explained why this unknowable situation was still carried as a Category I- a dangerous and aggressive bear statistic. Herrighty reported that they had to “err on the side of caution.” The llama killed is equally ambiguous. Llamas are ornery animals and territorial. The bear could have been attracted to the llama’s food or the llama may have challenged the bear and lost. Such ambiguous situations compiled into data of dangerous and aggressive bears’ are NOT scientific statistics. The DFW Web site states that normal bear behavior is opportunistic eating. The DFW sent out hundreds of thousands of brochures instructing residents to keep their garbage in the garage. Yet, when normal and typical opportunistic bears enter a garage for the food, or do damage to get to the food source, they are again labeled Category I: dangerous and aggressive, when they are in fact, exhibiting normal bear behavior, always mitigated by people. The bears will always be under threat in New Jersey. The DFW doesn’t have a bear management plan it has an agenda. The Jan. 24, 1988, Sunday Star Ledger carried an article that reported that the DFW estimated only 150 bears...and called for a hunt. It isn’t about bear populations or nuisance complaints. It’s always been about recreational trophy hunting. Everything else is a smokescreen for an unjustifiable, socially unacceptable execution of NJ’s timid black bears. Gail Gunberg Lafayette