By Ray Lesniak and Robert Torricelli

A broad coalition of over a dozen state and national organizations has asked Governor Phil Murphy to issue an executive order suspending the upcoming 2020 bear hunt in its entirety on public and private
lands. Protecting the public health of our state demands nothing less.

Allowing the unpopular trophy shoots this year is inconsistent with all the Governor’s cautious actions and executive orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The state’s bear slaughter tactics contradict black bear science and worse, attract out of state trophy hunters to New Jersey who are unlikely to quarantine for two weeks. Not only will the 2020 slaughter jeopardize the state’s already overhunted bear population, but it will put all the public at further risk due to the inability to socially distance at weigh stations and protest sites.

Sadly, New Jersey and Alaska are the only trophy hunting states that allow hunters to kill bear cubs. Thus, New Jersey is a magnet for these hunters from other states, some viral hotspots now, to both
enter our state and partake in the heinous practice of cruelly killing baited cubs.

Bait and shoots involve close contact between hunters removing dead bears from the field, and between hunters and state officials at black bear hunting check stations – all of this is contrary to the intent of
Governor Murphy’s prior orders regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

The New Jersey Fish and Game Council’s insistence on conducting unpopular, baited trophy hunts during the worldwide pandemic encourages public gatherings and the presence of protesters, requiring maintenance of protest areas by general law enforcement.

Like hunters, protestors should avoid unnecessary travel. Shooting and monitoring protest sites diverts law enforcement personnel best utilized elsewhere.

Hunt season Fall and Winter weather could exacerbate transmission and virility of the coronavirus. Considering unpredictable state budget scenarios (i.e.: furloughs, closures of parks, enforcement issues) any expectations to continue these 2020 trophy hunts are wholly irresponsible and counterproductive.

Concerns about the actual status of the New Jersey black population subjected to indiscriminate yearly trophy shoots, are mounting and real. Recent long-term studies in Colorado reported that increased
complaints do not mean an increased bear population https://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/02/colorado-black-bear-manage ment/.

Boosting hunts to ostensibly “control” assumed, erroneous numbers harm the bear population. The studies also found that restricting garbage reduces conflict; in the absence of such programs, conflicts rose sharply.

In 2015, the Division of Fish and Wildlife estimated that New Jersey was home to fewer than 4,000 bears. The hunters’ agency then permitted the sale of up to 11,000 black bear permits in 2016 as part of its expanded trophy hunt. Furthermore, New Jersey’s 2015 Comprehensive Black Bear Management Plan allows trophy hunters to kill up to 30 percent of the entire bear population annually; an excessive percentage particularly when a credible population estimate is unknown. The black bear has one of the lowest reproductive rates of any North American land animal. Human persecution of bears through trophy hunting is “super-additive,” meaning that kill rates exceed naturally occurring mortalities, disrupting social structures and natural behavior.

Trophy hunters are also deliberately undermining the Governor’s prior efforts. Executive Order No. 34, issued in 2018 banning hunting on public land, prohibited “drive hunting” of bears on state property, but nevertheless hunters drove bears off of state lands onto other public lands or private land where they were hunted.

To highlight the problem with drive hunting, on September 19, 2018, Mr. Frank Panico, Deputy Chief of the Bureau of Law Enforcement for the Division of Fish and Wildlife, said that the driving of bears off of
state property, where they are protected, in order to kill them, “is not illegal” because it was not “hunting.” Notwithstanding the coalition providing proof that the Division’s own regulations defined “driving” as hunting, the Division still permits the undermining of the Governor’s Executive Order No. 34 to continue.

The position of the Division of Fish and Wildlife undermined the value of Executive Order No. 34 and allowed hunters to willfully circumvent restrictions on bear hunting to kill more bears. If hunters willfully flout the governor’s prior order, can we really expect them to act responsibly and self-quarantine? How is that even possible given the travel and timeframe of the upcoming killing sessions?

Our coalition’s request to suspend the 2020 black bear trophy hunt would remedy these problems, maintain the credibility of the governor’s prior efforts to flatten the curve, and protect public health.

Senator Raymond J. Lesniak
Senator Robert Torricelli