New Jersey bans some bear hunts

TRENTON, N.J. — A political trap lies waiting in the wilds of the Garden State where black bears roam in resurgent numbers.

The issue that has bedeviled New Jersey governors for decades. Both sides claim the moral high ground. The question: How should the most densely populated state in the country manage bear-human relations? Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order last week effectively ending the state’s planned 2018 bear hunt on all state-owned lands. It was an attempt by the Democrat to fulfill a campaign pledge to environmental activists.

But those same activists were not exactly thrilled.

“Stopping the hunt on state lands does not stop the hunt,” said Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “It only changes where the bears get killed. The hunt will continue on other public lands, including county parks, water company lands and private lands. We still need Gov. Murphy to keep his commitment to ban the bear hunt completely.” Nor were hunters happy. “We are shocked and distressed that the governor would take such an action,” said Cody McLaughlin, a board trustee of the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance. “Those who have read the countless science on this and other issues of hunting know, it is the best tool in the toolbox for wildlife management of any species — including bears — and this ban flies in the face of a mountain of research urging the contrary.”

The governor’s office argued the executive order went as far as Murphy could within his executive authority, absent an agreeable legislature. And Murphy hasn’t enjoyed an especially agreeable relationship with Stephen M. Sweeney, the Democratic Senate president. Sweeney is the co-chairman of the New Jersey Angling and Hunting Conservation Caucus and he has kept legislation restricting the hunt from the Senate floor.

The debate over how New Jersey’s residents and bears should get along dates back deROGERS