NJ High court won't stop start of NJ bear hunt

[The Straight Story]

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A judge on New Jersey's highest court refused on Saturday to stop a black bear hunt scheduled to begin Monday.

The Animal Protection League of New Jersey and the Bear Education and Resource Group had asked the court to issue a stay that would have stopped the six-day hunt, the state's first in five years, before it started.

But Supreme Court Justice Edwin Stern turned down that request in an order issued Saturday afternoon. It provided no explanation for the decision and came a day after an appeals court refused to block the hunt, saying the groups' claims lacked merit.

"Of course we are disappointed in (Stern's ruling), but this is the same thing that happened in 2005," bear-activist lawyer Doris Lin said Saturday, referring to a prior lawsuit that eventually succeeded in challenging the state's bear management policy.

In a 2007 ruling in that case, an appellate panel determined that the state's 2005 bear hunt had been illegal and no hunt was held in 2007. The activists' court petition to stop the 2005 hunt had been denied at the appellate level and by the Supreme Court.

http://www.necn.com/12/04/10/High-court-wont-stop-start-of-NJ-bear-hu/landing_scitech.html?&blockID=3&apID=6329bf9720df433daee70692dbb3ea9c

[PBS Poll-435]

1. Call me biased, but I am very opposed to hunting bears

Fucking horrible.

[sasha031]

2. this is sickening

everything is abut killing and guns these day. :cry:

I love all animals, what is wrong with people....

[Recursion]

3. NJ? Which exit is the hunt at?

Though seriously I didn't know there was a bear population there.

[Hoopla Phil]

4. The Black Bear population is thriving in N.J. Link here for more info on them

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/bearfacts.htm

[Recursion]

5. Thanks; that has links to their management plans too

And they seem to have studied the population and determined a harvest is appropriate this year.

[FarCenter]

7. The bears are like Al Qaeda

We have to kill them in Warren and Sussex so that they don't terrorize us in Hudson and Essex.

[Hoopla Phil]

10. Um, ok. If you say so.

:eyes:

[njlib]

6. It's literally in my neck of the woods,

far from the turnpike or parkway. I live in Sussex County and will be going over to Waywayanda State Park on Monday to stand with any protesters who may be there.

I've only seen 3 bears this year, all at night, in the Ringwood/West Milford part of my daily commute. There's usually a few sightings in my neighborhood each year, but none for 2010 that I know of.

As usual, the problem is with the PEOPLE, not the animals. In just the 13 years I've lived in this area, it's gotten so developed that there's no place for the natural inhabitants to go. Plus, people feed them or are negligent with their garbage & barbecues. A couple of years ago there was a story in the local paper about a father & son hiking at Waywayanda. They came across a bear, gave it a bagel, and when the bear wanted more and they didn't have anything else to give, the son got scratched. There were plenty of comments in the paper regarding that story and most of them were on the side of the bear, but that didn't stop a vocal minority from screaming that we needed another hunt. During the last hunt, over 300 bears were killed and they were overwhelmingly female. One of the rules is that hunters are not allowed to go into dens and kill them, but I'd be willing to bet that most of the kills happened in the dens. What they need is a rule that only bears who weigh more than our governor are eligible to be hunted...the number of kills would be 0!!!

They're the most beautiful creatures....last year I was going down the mountain in West Milford and there was a bear on his hind legs, hugging a telephone pole, just hanging out and scratching his face on the pole. Traffic slowed to a crawl because everyone was watching him. Anytime traffic slows down like that, I always look off on either side of the road because 9 times out of 10, everyone's trying to get a look at a bear.

[Biker13]

8. New Jersey...

has no idea on how to manage ANY animal population. I sold my farm in Middletown five years ago, and I couldn't have any landscaping of any kind because of the whitetail deer population. They are completely out of control. My Mom lived in Westfield, and she had black bears in her backyard, complements of the Watchung Reservation. Bears should have never been re-introduced to the area. What were they thinking?

Now I'm in Idaho, with grizzles, cougars, and wolves! But at least these animals are where they belong!

Biker's Old Lady

[astral]

9. The Re-Wilding of America is underway. n/t