NJOA Blasts Governor Murphy Over Pocket Veto, Decries ‘Senseless Virtue Signaling’

Trenton – Sportsmen coalition decries senseless virtue signaling and mismanagement of natural resources

The New Jersey Outdoor Alliance on Tuesday released a statement:

“The beaver bill was a no-brainer piece of bipartisan legislation that met its end for no other reason than the Governor’s senseless virtue signaling his extremist base.” said NJOA spokesman Cody McLaughlin, “This veto puts Governor Murphy’s environmental record beyond “all hat and no horse” and well into a blatant disregard for the science in favor of a cheap talking point to feed to groups who are against putting wildlife resource management back in the hands of scientists, where it belongs. It’s sad.”

S3407 (Sweeney/Oroho) / A2731 (Taliaferro/Space): removes statutory limitations on the number of permits that may be issued by the Division of Fish and Wildlife for the taking of beaver.

Facts about the Beaver Bill:

• Regulated harvest helps to maintain wild populations and decreases the potential for negative interactions between humans and wildlife, (i.e. bears at bird feeders or on porches, coyote attacks).
• Regulated harvest provides a local, healthy, organic source of food (or clothing) with minimal impacts to other resources. Many of our other sources of food and clothing require the conversion of wildlife habitat (cotton – bear habitat, citrus groves – wetlands; beef cattle – prairie and desert ecosystems), transportation costs (use of gas/oil, pollution, energy for refrigeration, etc.), and often the use of a broad array of chemicals and pesticides to produce.
• Regulated harvest helps to maintain some populations in ecological balance with their habitat (deer, muskrat, beaver, raccoon) many which are increasing due to human changes to the landscape (loss of predators, conversion of forestland to suburban/agricultural habitats.)
• Regulated harvest helps to control populations of introduced exotics such as nutria.
• Regulated harvest helps to protect declining, rare, threatened, or endangered species by targeting specific predators that are negatively affecting recovery efforts (i.e. red fox, raccoon, and skunk predation on piping plover nests).
• Regulated harvest provides an opportunity for millions of people to interact with nature and the out-of-doors thereby fostering stewardship and conservation efforts.
• Regulated harvest recognizes the economic and recreational benefits of trapping.
• A regulated harvest is a tool for the sustained harvest of some species of furbearers and an effective method of managing or studying furbearers.

About the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance: New Jersey Outdoor Alliance’s mission is “preservation through conservation.” NJOA serves as a grassroots coalition of outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen dedicated to the conservation of natural resources and environmental stewardship that champions the intrinsic value of fishing, hunting and trapping, among opinion leaders, policy makers, and the public at-large. To learn more about the organization, please visit: https://njoutdooralliance.org/.

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