Big New Jersey Bear !!!!!!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
BY BRIAN T. MURRAY
Star-Ledger Staff
"Bearzilla" is real and living somewhere in West Milford.
A 726-pound male black bear, the heaviest ever handled by New Jersey wildlife officials, was captured over the weekend in the northern Passaic County township. It was treated for a nose injury, marked with identifying tags and set free.
"That is just its spring weight. It only recently left a winter den ... Wait until it feeds all summer to fatten up for denning this fall. It could get over 900 pounds," said Len Wolgast, a member of the state Fish and Game Council and former wildlife biology professor.
The bear was trapped and tranquilized, along with another bear, on Saturday. A third male bear was trapped in the same area Monday.
Wildlife officials set traps in the area because residents had been complaining of bruins getting too close to people and even following children.
A couple in the area was given a warning for leaving food out for the bears -- a possible precursor to a summons -- but officials said the bears were not euthanized because they had not posed an imminent threat to humans, nor had they broken into any homes.
"We were getting complaints from their neighbors. There were five or six bears wandering in the same neighborhood, and the complaint was that they were becoming tame, getting close to people," said Lawrence Herrighty, assistant director of the state Division of Fish and Wildlife. "The couple was leaving food out for the bears in their yard."
The big bruin and another male bear were snared in culvert traps -- large, drum-like devices placed in the backyard of one home.
Rather than kill the bears, however, officials tried to put the fear of humans into them. The bears were released from the trap and fired at with rubber buck-shot and firecrackers in a bid to make them fearful of human contact.
"It was done right in the area where they were caught so they would know that to be an area to avoid," Herrighty said.
Reports of large bears, nicknamed "Bearzilla" by people living with them in the northwest corner of the state, are common. But until now, the largest caught by the state wildlife officials was more than 100 pounds lighter.
The bear trapped in West Milford was enormous compared with the average 200- to 400-pound weight of most bears handled in New Jersey.