The mind of an anti...
This is the kind of warped thinking we are up against here in NJ..
Bears getting agency's help in their move south
Published in the Asbury Park Press 06/14/05
BY STUART CHAIFETZ
The Asbury Park Press reported June 6 that the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife removed a black bear from Woodbridge and relocated him to a wildlife area in Millstone and Upper Freehold. This revelation confirmed what many of us had long surmised: The division was deliberately taking bears from the north and moving them to the south.
Hunters would have us believe that bears showing up in Monmouth and Ocean counties walked there from Sussex or Passaic counties, through the most congested and developed land in the nation and somehow bypassing 4 million to 5 million people. No more must we listen to these ludicrous prevarications. A source no less than the director of the division has confirmed that bears don't make the journey through natural means, but instead get to the south by being driven there.
To understand why the division has done this, you need to understand what the division is - a state agency dedicated to providing recreational killing for hunters. Not only are most division biologists hunters themselves, but their salaries are dependent upon the sale of hunting licenses. This conflict of interest is as clear as it is astounding - the state agency that should be protecting wildlife instead profits from their slaughter.
With bears, however, it is this and more, for both the division and the hunters were outraged when the bear hunt was called off last year. They are doing everything they can to make sure there will be a hunt this year. To do this, they want to generate as much controversy as possible. It is for this reason alone that they are moving bears south.
Manipulating the public is how the division operates. Earlier in this decade, the division manipulated data to cause a bear hunt, and it is doing the same thing now by transferring bears to Monmouth County.
Jack Spoto of Freehold, president of the United Bowhunters of New Jersey, wrote a commentary in which he intentionally misled people about bears. ("Politicians to blame for migrating bears," June 8.) In our entire recorded history, black bears have never killed anyone in our state. To imply or state otherwise is to lie. This is even more shameful when you realize it is the hunter who is more dangerous than the bear.
To paraphrase Spoto regarding bears, hunters have been responsible for many injuries and deaths. Do you know what an armed hunter is afraid of in New Jersey? Nothing.
This last point was tragically proven two months ago. A hunter in Vernon (which is bear country) got into an argument with his girlfriend. In his condominium, which was decorated with numerous mounts of animals he had killed, he placed his shotgun to her chest and pulled the trigger. This was not the first time a hunter has killed. As long as their ideology remains - that problems are to be solved at the barrel end of a gun - it will not be the last one.
I reject the creed of the gun and the bloodshed that ensues from it, especially when it comes to how we manage our wildlife. This is why I support the sterilization studies under way that will allow us to keep bear populations in check without killing them.
A few months before the bear hunt in 2003, while visiting friends in northern New Jersey, I met a bear who lived peacefully with her neighbors. It was a magnificent experience - not just that I was within a few feet of this wonderful animal but that the residents there loved her, and loved having her as a neighbor.
On one of the last days of the hunt, she was shot in the back by a hunter. Wracked with pain, she made her way home to the people she knew would care for her. They found her hiding in a tree, her blood pouring down the bark. They gave her the medical care needed to survive. She lived, but how many others, shot, wounded and crippled, died torturous deaths all because some greedy hunter wanted her skin and body as a trophy?
This is the nature of hunting. This is why it must ever be fought against, and why we must not allow another bear hunt.
Stuart Chaifetz is director of the Animal Protection Political Action Committee, Cherry Hill.