Bear hunt
Indie I think it's a bad move. We will start having huge bear problems within a few years.
Calico696 
Bemused While I'm a huge lover of animals especially bears, I am concerned that the bear population will get out of hand if not controlled. Perhaps we don't need a bear hunt every year, but we do need to keep them controlled. So maybe every other year for a hunt would be needed. BUT NO HUNTING OF BEAR CUBS OR TAKING MOTHERS FROM THEIR CUBS!
Just sayin' 
iJay Maybe we wouldn’t have a “bear problem” if we stopped chopping down and paving over their natural habitat.
BC We will pay the price in injuries for his decision if he happens to pull it off, very bad move!
This is a Fish and Game decision and should be left out of his wheel house.
We cannot keep building and pushing animals out of their natural habitat without controlling the animal population. That's similar to not building any more homes and wondering in 5 years why some people cannot find housing, it's a part of growth and safety.
Darrin Darrin, you hit the nail in the head with your observation concerning ever increasing housing needs. That’s exactly the problem, over population of humans on this planet is leading to its demise. But it easier to put the blame on the animals because they have no way to defend themselves. Thank goodness there are some of us who care and can be their voice.
BC-you live in a tent, or a van down by the river?
Certainly not a structure, on cleared land, that you can drive to....
Stymie On this one this liberal says being on the hunt.
Like most things, it’s a numbers game.
X number of bears = Y number of accidents (I say accidents cuz it’s not like they want to hurt us or vice-versa)
X numbers of wilderness acres can only support Y numbers of bears. 0 bears can be supported in residential areas.
600 lb bear = huge problem for <200 lb human. Little bears OK, but they grow.
One way or another, you need the number of $$$ to protect us.
- $$$ to shoot em to keep numbers down, increase fear of humans, cheapest solution
- $$$ to remove any that get too close, too often, much more expensive.
Seems obvious that a bear population number can be determined and hunts authorized based on numbers. Farmers should not be restricted at all. It’s their land so if the State wants bears there, pay them according to damage costs.
You can prohibit on some state lands, but all state land prohibition seems not thoughtful. High Point very different than the State Parks around Clinton.
IMO, similar theory for deer.
Strangerdanger Living in Indy on a fairly large size property we often see many species of wildlife on our property often in multiple numbers including the Beautiful Black Bear. We enjoy seeing the animals and we conscientiously do not put anything outside to attract their attention. That said, the hunt should not be abolished. It is necessary as I feel a hunt is necessary with Deer. This is our opinion. We are NOT hunters and nobody in our family are hunters.
Mrs. Pipes There may not be any more bear hunts until some Trenton politician has the unfortunate experience of running head-on into a bear standing in the middle of a highway!
fusselfrei I love the bears. There needs to be a longer deer season. There is way too many deer around. I read that a fawn can mate at six months old and have the baby at one year old. There are more deer hit by cars than bear. Bears are not a big problem but deer are.
Bob Kunkel Deer season in this area is from September till January that is long enough ... as for bear the numbers have dropped we need to take a break for a year or two and then reopen the season and yes I am hunter who hunts everyday possible from September till January....
LibertyThinker Bear sightings and nuisance reports are up over 50% from 2019 to 2020, ytd.
I think they’re beautiful too, but a 600 lb-er at 100 feet, not so much.
+1 for Pipes.
This is a classic darned if you do, darned if you don't situation. Yes, the bear population is manmade due to encroaching on their natural habitat but that just means we are seeing more bears because they have no place to go. The bears are probably just reproducing like normal but it is the humans who have overpopulated. That said, maybe the every other year idea is a good start, keep track of the numbers during the year off.
For reals I'm torn on it. I question whether or not the administration is leading with their heart and not their head on this issue, but I'd love to see arguments for both sides.
Jay let’s have a squirrel season these things are picking apart pumpkins from my porch unreal.
Drew Deer season actually runs from September 12th to February 20th. NJ needs more hunting, not less.
Idea.............. how about a post here on HL from anyone who "represents" us in Trenton.Maybe they can share how murfie comes up with his nonsense. Assembly or Senate members out there in HL land?
Jim KIngI haven't hunted in 30+ years. Does not being able to hunt on state land for bear keep their population rising ? I know last year ya couldn't.
Did anyone else see the BEAR at the intersection of Washington and Warren at about 7:10 AM on Monday? It was heading toward Mt. Ave. Fairly large but not the largest I've seen in the Hackettstown/Mansfield area.
NJHokieFan Wait till a few people get mauled or injured. I think Murphy should personally be liable!! He has no idea and probably never even seen a bear in the wild... Mabey he should ban incompetent politicians who are clueless!!!!!!
Mr. tone 
Metsman Extremely rare to read about any injuries/mauling/death by bear- The only I remember in recent years involved a guy who, unlike his pals, hung out close to the bear- taking pix or something - it was his own fault for extreme lack of common sense -
4catmom There was a comical story a couple of years ago.
Record or Ledger.
Camper on top of the Water Gap.
Feeding bears bagels.
Got attacked.
Called the park Ranger.
Ranger arrested the camper for feeding the bears bagels.
True story.
Look it up .
The risk of hitting a bear or getting attacked is not great enough to warrant killing an important part of NJ’s environment. People who are afraid of bears are also likely those living a sheltered life
As I said, it’s a numbers game. Bears are cool, too many bears are not cool. You can remove with hunt for low $$$ or you can find, trap, and move nuisance bears for more $$$. But stopping the hunt and doing nothing extra when sightings and nuisance statistics are up 50% 2019-2020 is just trouble waiting to happen. Murphy is wrong on this one IMO, at least in Mr. Danger’s neighborhood.
If anyone is finding the deer population a nuisance and has open land that is legal to hunt on, please send me a message and we can talk about a way to help...responsibly!
HHH If you truly love bears, you’d be all for hunting them. They have no natural predators except humans. If we can’t shoot them, we’ll end up running into them with vehicles in the road. If they get smart enough to stay away from roads, they’ll starve to death. Either way their population will be naturally kept in check. The problem is the explosion of population in the next 10 years...before the cars get a chance to hit them.
Yes, logic. Because before roads, bear starvation ran rampant ;-)
That’s why sightings and nuisance is up 50% this year; less traffic due to covid.
We need to reopen to lower the bear population.
Logic.
Meanwhile, we do have a bear problem, it’s getting worse, significantly this year, ex and doing nothing will do nothing and the problem, traffic or not, will only get worse. Murphy can’t remove the hunt without replacing it with an equal or better solution. There’s some logic for youse.
The latest N. J. Fish & Game black bear management Plan expires in June of 21. No Black Bear hunts can be held until a new management plan is adopted. I guess we can expect a long Drawn out battle between Murphy and Fish & Game council. I think Murphy should let the experts decide.
Does anyone have proof that the bears are overpopulated?
Last years the harvest rate was only 15.3% of a goal 20%. That’s 25% less.
A few possibilities:
1. Not as many people hunted as anticipated
2. Not as many bears exist as estimated
3. Fish and Game are tag-happy
Nothing to support that there are too many bears. Of course, there are too many people...
So the state only considers a bear A Nuisance bear if it breaks into your house. If it breaks into your car, your chicken coop (the bear got into mine 3 times this year), tears siding off your house, attacks your dog, etc... it’s your problem, not the states. The state will not relocate a problem bear unless it gets into your house. If it gets in your house they euthanize it. Neighborhoods have an over population of bears and it’s pretty annoying.
Jesse132 Jesse, what evidence do you have to support that “neighborhoods have an overpopulation of bears” ?
Can’t speak tp population, but state tracking says sightings and nuisance reports are up 50% 2019 to 2020.
One would surmise the probability is more likely up than down.
Hoover, There are a ton of bears in Long Valley and other neighborhoods. Bears are breaking into a lot of chicken coops in long valley and other neighborhoods, so yeah, lots of bears in neighborhoods. Bears are doing lots of damage to coops and eating the chickens so they are turning into giant PIAs.
Sorry for your subdivision. Shoot all bears, coyotes, minks, fishers, hawks, Bob cats, and anything else that moves which “annoy” your recreational, poultry agriculture. Stop trying to control natural things greater than your small world
Hoover, do you want bears destroying your stuff? Because if they did you would be pretty mad too. Here is what the bear did to my coop. And it ate 6 of my chickens. The state does nothing to stop problem bears, they throw it all back on the property owner and don’t offer to help.
While I agree that anything, anyone, who destroys my stuff or endangers my family, must be dealt with, I thought the State did remove nuisance bears.
Last time, and this was two years ago, it just took enough sightings/calls and they trapped and resettled the bear. It did help that it crossed a community park so a flood of calls.
Seemed to work, but did take more than a single incident. Did you report this to the “bear line?”
Hunting is hunting, what difference does it make if its a deer or a bear to people who are against it, or is deer hunting next on the chopping block?
I think people are conflating the Sate removing bears that are a nuisance and hunters harvesting bears for food/sport. Two separate issues
Consigliere, correct, but people do not argue the deer hunt that I know of, what difference is a bear hunt is my question.
But both parts of the conflate have a confluence with the end result. Heh, heh. It’s just that one is far less expensive.
Jesse: yes, the “problem” is yours, the state will not make you whole.
The State most certainly removes nuisance bears “when the situation warrants it.” Thus, as I said, it’s good to have support, prove danger to many, etc. “Warrants” covers a lot of ground.
What deer? Do you mean “field rats.” Extend and expand that hunt. Hard to see a pristine piece of agriculture anymore without an 8 foot fence ruining the view.
The problem is we pretend we are rural. In rural, the over abundance would already have been dispatched by rifles and scopes.
From NJDFW website:
"Over the last 35 years, the Garden State's black bear population has been increasing and expanding its range southward and eastward from the forested areas of northwestern New Jersey. The population has grown due to increased black bear habitat as agricultural land reverted to mature forests, protection afforded by game animal status, and bears dispersing into New Jersey from increasing populations in Pennsylvania and New York. Additionally, the state's black bears have some of the largest litters and highest reproductive rates in the nation. Today, black bears can be found throughout the state.
Since 1980, the DFW has steadily increased its efforts to responsibly manage our large and expanding black bear population and to be responsive to the increasing conflicts between bears and people. Since Fiscal Year 2001, DFW has spent more than $9 million on black bear management. This includes $5.5 million of general treasury funds and $3.5 million from the Hunters and Anglers Fund and federal grants. The Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy allowed for annual hunting seasons, to be evaluated after the 2014 season concludes.
DFW's bear management strategy is an integrated approach that includes research and monitoring, non-lethal and lethal control of problem bears, public education on how to coexist with bears, enforcement of laws designed to reduce bear related conflicts, and bear population control.
In September, 2014, a fatal predatory black bear attack occured in West Milford, Passaic County, resulting in the death of a 22-year old male. It is the first documented bear fatality in New Jersey's history.
Though extremely rare, such attacks have and do occur throughout black bear habitat in North America."
Never worried about bears while growing up around here. Now I worry about the kids hiking in the woods. Encroachment in this area hasn't been an issue since the Skylands Act was enacted. The bear population is just growing naturally; a managed hunt is necessary for both healthy sleuths of Bears and public safety.
Double the sightings this year, 20 home invasions (probably garage), couple of attacks, seems to me it’s no us infringing of the bear’s turf.....
Just keep the hunt, trim the numbers, remove the nuisance bears and then extend and increase the deer season; numbers way too high.
For those complaining we are stealing the bears land, please burn your house down and off yourself. You should do your part, no?
You only think you’ve heard it all
https://www.nj.com/news/2020/10/police-searching-for-bear-that-went-to-wawa-red-bull-arena-and-ended-up-on-a-roof.html
Roywhite 
They have a new mug shot of the perpetrator in case you see him around. Apparently he is most often seen in different parts of the country in the Fall on Sunday afternoons, Monday or Thursday nights, but hardly ever between January to February. Spends his summers in Illinois.
"Bear sightings and nuisance reports are up over 50% from 2019 to 2020, ytd."
Well of course they are. MORE PEOPLE ARE HOME THIS YEAR TO SEE THEM.
love the bears Good point. Relooked and article even added, more home = more garbage = more invasions.
But there are still more bears and too many bears. Worse on the dear deer front, as cute as they are.
The big = is still too many bears, too close to home = need bear hunt to reduce supply, make trash demand in less demand. IMO of course.
Went bear hunting yesterday, no bears but saw 8 deer and a fox
Back at it Friday and Saturday, wish me luck :->
Wanna try these bear meatballs that were mentioned!
For those that say we are encroaching on their habitat I grew up around here. I'm 67 and hunted, hiked, and played in the woods all the time when I was young. We didn't have X box and the like and only a few TV stations so that's what you did. I never saw a bear, bear track, or knew anyone who ever saw a bear. Not one. It was much less populated back then so there was plenty of habitat. It's only in the last 20 years that bears have shown up around here and now I see them in the yard all the time. Bears make other bears. They have no natural predator and if there is no hunt in a few years there's going to be a lot of them. They may be cute but you haven't lived until you walk around the corner of your house and there is a huge 400 to 500 lb. animal walking right toward you. Not fun!
Tom E Why do people want to live in suburban or rural areas if they have a problem with wildlife? There are plenty of cities.
LibertarianismRules Because bears are problematic when they break into your chicken coop, destroy your vegetable gardens, knock down fences, etc....
So are foxes, raccoons and coyotes. Keep your trash can secured and your chicken coop as well. I lived on a 50 horse farm in Wantage growing up. We had no problem with bear.
Next year there won’t be a bear hunt according to Murphy.
pampurr1 Oh give me a break..... I am a liberal, some would say flaming (but that's really not true). There are too many bears in NJ. Too many people. Bad combination. They just don't mix well, especially when surprised. Deer, worse on cars and shrubs, but still too many.
This may not be suburbia, but it certainly ain't the country either. Many of our last remaining farms have 8 foot wire stockade perimeters because of pests like deer and bear. Yes, at these numbers they are pests.
If you live in the "real" country, these pests are usually dealt with to the point where they want very little interaction with humans. In my decade or so where I was so far out that my driveway was over 1 mile long, the closest house 1/2 mile away, and surrounded by over 1,000 acres of farm fields ------> never saw a bear, and deer were skittish at their bravest. Whatever I was hunting; mostly pheasants and quail, could scare up every time I went out. Knew my little corner of heaven pretty well.
But to keep pests not only in balance, but keenly afraid of humans, rifles and scopes can do that best, cheapest, and easiest.
The hunt is our least expensive fix, and yes, I say this is broken. The other alternative is trapping and removing nuisance bear (and deer), and I do not think many taxpayers love the bear that much.
The whole problem needs to be rethought. Man does not treat animals well, this should not be the case.
I think (pretty much) that if you keep your trash cans in the garage and put them out the morning of pick up, problem will pretty much take care of itself.
They’re just looking for a free “buffet”, foraging for a meal. No meal not much of an attraction.
Been in Jersey since the mid/70’s and seen maybe 7 bears total.
I can live with them and am thrilled when I get a glimpse.
In our Neighborhood we have a bear Named Wednesday. It is named Wednesday because that's the night before garbage pick up and it shows up on that night to forage . I put my garbage out the night before and have no problems. I do believe it is because of the litter from our 3 indoor cats. We never get touch but my neighbors are. One time the bear took the garbage from across the street and had a picnic on my lawn but my garbage was untouched
I see three to four a year. Mostly travel my property edges so OK. But once a year, get a 20 foot surprise and even the little ones seem big. And the 600 lb-ers seem huge even when I’m in a huge suv. So far so good, but really just a matter of time.
Just too many, too close, and they come by my way on their way to higher density neighborhoods.
Strangerdanger
Ah, in "higher density areas", you mean like the one that's been reported before in the Washington, Moore, Church, etc. area. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't expect or like to come upon them one night and I'm pretty sure most others wouldn't either. It could end very badly for any and all 2-4 legged parties involved.
Phil D. Just a cul-de-sac College View sort of place. Or the park. Really not too many choices. Figure it's just one of many routes it takes, 6-15 miles depending on gender. Based on size, I would say this one's at the 15 miles side of average and other sightings seem to confirm.
Don't know what it takes to claim a nuisance bear, but have not seen this fellow for a month so figuring not many, given it's size.
This article is from January 2018, right before Gov. Murphy took office, but the doubling statistic hasn't changed.
"Gov.-elect Phil Murphy's plan to halt the bear hunt could double the bear population by 2022, according to a report from state wildlife officials."
https://www.nj.com/news/2018/01/nj_wildlife_officials_defend_the_bear_hunt.html
Well, we finally agree on something! And don’t forget the deer. Whatever we’re doing, it’s not enough.
The problem with the deer from my perspective is that they are very smart and hide in small patches of woods that are between houses. You have to drive them out of there into larger patches where you can shoot in order to get them. Deer season runs from September to February between all the various types of seasons (bow, shotgun, & muzzleloader). But you have home owners who are nasty that'll call the cops a lot of times if you try to do that. Its not like the guys walking through have guns. They're just pushing the deer to standers with guns who aren't near their properties.
Last night- Coleman Rd just off of Rte 24
Fawn or small deer dashed across my lane and jumped into the upper rear of vehicle in the oncoming lane-maybe 10 feet ahead of me.
Just missed my car- hit, spun around and disappeared.
Happened in a flash.
Sure there was damage.
Unavoidable.
Welcome to the New Jersey woods where we have bears and poisonous snakes including our protected Timber Rattlesnakes. Don't feed the bears and watch where you walk. Is the city safer?
Robert Rowe “Green Acres is the place to be...”
“Hard (?) livin’ is the life for me...”
“Land stretching so far and wide...”
“Love Manhattan but give me the countryside...”
HaHaHa
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