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New Jersey Outdoor Alliance

TRENTON, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- After reading about New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel’s belief that a bear hunt is unwarranted and unfounded because it will not help to manage bears in New Jersey (op-ed, “Unbearable hunt,” Dec. 8), as well as similar comments from others in the animal rights community, it occurred to me that one has to overlook some very compelling evidence to the contrary in order to cultivate such faith.

To reach the animal activists’ conclusion, one must disagree with the findings of both a Superior Court and Appellate Court judge, each having ruled that the state of New Jersey had put together a viable, comprehensive bear management plan. The two courts agreed that the hunt should proceed.

People would also need to turn a deaf ear to avoid hearing the pervading wisdom of biologists, wildlife managers and state agencies across America that argue persuasively in favor of hunting as one of several necessary bear management tools.

To agree with the conclusion of animal activists, one must close one’s eyes to the negative psychological effects associated with human-bear conflicts in residential, commercial and camping venues. It also requires an exceptional degree of callousness to ignore claims of economic loss caused by bears to agriculture-related businesses. This insensitivity would also extend to financial harm that would befall employers and employees of hotels, camps and other businesses as a result of lost tourism should a bear-human conflict result in injury or worse.

To agree with the animal activists requires one to show complete disregard for human safety. We would have to be ignorant about the ways black bears respond to periods of declining food sources and lack understanding about the perils associated with bear habituation — the reasons for increased bear-human conflicts. They may, in fact, also be the cause of recent livestock and pet deaths by black bears as well as reported physical encounters between bears and humans.

Animal activists want to promote the rights of bears, but to do so at the expense of the public health is emotional thinking. Difficulty distinguishing between emotions and thoughts may be the reason for animal activists’ sensational claims that the bear hunt is a grand conspiracy of New Jersey’s governor to curry favor with hunters, roll back environmental progress and turn the Garden State over to developers and polluters. Regardless of their origins, they are radical accusations.

Emotional thinking may also be the spark that ignited a handful of activists to hold a bear hunt protest in Trenton last week. They lectured using spurious claims based on manipulated data and research. They even earned the Truth-O-Meter “Pants on Fire” rating from truth watchdog PolitiFact for their claim that 99 percent of New Jerseyans are against the bear hunt.

Finally, for the animal activist to believe that, during a time of dwindling habitat and prolific bear population expansion, bear-human conflict can be managed solely by garbage containment and public education is to defy common sense and rely on wishful thinking. While limiting food sources and educating the public about black bears is useful, it does nothing to address the primary reasons for increased bear-human conflicts: growth of the bear population, loss of habitat and habituation.

Hunting is the tool that addresses these causes.

The New Jersey Outdoor Alliance believes that a black bear hunt is a responsible, pragmatic, environmentally sound, science-based method for bringing the black bear population in line with the cultural carrying capacity of available habitat, which is the goal of environmental stewards. It also provides food for the hunter and his or her family while aversively conditioning bears, which provides a measure of lasting public safety.

Anthony P. Mauro is chairman and co-founder of the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, New Jersey Outdoor Alliance Conservation Foundation and New Jersey Outdoor Alliance Environmental Projects, dedicated to conservation and environmental stewardship.

JOIN NJOA: http://www.njoutdooralliance.org/support/njoa.html

About:
NJOA – The mission of New Jersey Outdoor Alliance is to serve as a grassroots coalition of outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen dedicated to environmental stewardship. We will champion the intrinsic value of natural resource conservation – including fishing, hunting and trapping, among opinion leaders and policy makers. We will support legislation, and those sponsoring legislation, that provides lasting ecological and social enrichment through sustainable use of the earths resources. Visit: www.njoutdooralliance.org

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Sierra Club Opposes NJ Bear Hunt a Crucial Element of Science Based Conservation
By J.R. Robbins
Managing Editor,
www.nrahuntersrights.org

From time to time, I hear it said that the Sierra Club is pro-hunting, not in New Jersey...

NRAHuntersRights.org

Trenton, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- From time to time, I hear it said that the Sierra Club is pro-hunting.

For the record, here is what the Sierra Club New Jersey Chapter had to say in reaction to an announcement—long awaited by hunters—that New Jersey has finally approved a bear management plan that includes a hunting season.

“This management plan is just a charade. Even though the plan says it is a management plan, there is no management,” Tittel said.

“New Jersey has cut all funds for bear management and alternatives to hunts. The state has eliminated funds for education, programs that deal with garbage, bear aversion therapy, bear wardens, conservation officers, and other non-lethal methods of management.”

The Sierra Club opposes the bear hunt and will continue to fight for a strong bear management plan that actually works. The public agrees. The public comments against the hunt were overwhelmingly against it. ” [Note: though unconfirmed AmmoLand has been told that support for hunting was over whelming compared to the small vocal minority of animal rights supporters]

The full press release is here. http://newjersey.sierraclub.org/PressReleases/0171.asp

Call me crazy but that does not sound pro-hunting. And I do not think that educational information about bear-proofing your garbage needs any significant funding. Such advice is all over the Internet, or you could even pick up the phone and call the game and fish department.

And the conservation officers New Jersey already has don’t have time to be conservation officers because they—and the police—are too busy answering bear nuisance complaints, coaxing bears off porches and away from school bus stops, and dragging road-killed bears off the highways.

As for management plans “that actually work,” Sierra Club NJ might do well look at nearby states like New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia – all of which have bear hunting seasons– and compare the rate of bear nuisance complaints, not to mention the overall health of the bear populations in those states.

Hunting in those states has kept bears within their carrying capacity, whereas in New Jersey, bears are fast outpacing theirs.

About:
For the most up-to-date information about your hunting rights there’s just one source: www.NRAhuntersrights.org.

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