Both sides taking aim at state bear hunt

Sussex County - There will be a black bear hunt next month, but that doesn’t mean the debate over it has ended. The six-day hunt, announced last week by Bradley M. Campbell, the commissioner of the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection, begins Dec. 5 in 1,600 square miles in the area of New Jersey north of I-78 and west of I-287. Praising Campbell’s decision, hunters have said the plan is the only way to reduce the likelihood of further bear attacks on homes, pets and people. “You can have all the education in the world,” Tony Celebrezze, a U.S. Sportmen’s Alliance member, told the Associated Press. “You can have all the trash cans that you can. That does not reduce the number of bears in a population. Hunting is the only way. You remove one bear from the population at a time.” But animal rights activists feel a hunt, similar to the one two years ago that killed more than three hundred bears, is no more than an excuse for hunters to add trophies to their collections. Educating people not to feed bears makes more sense, they say. An education program was cited by Bradley last year when he decided to block the hunt. A subsequent N.J. Supreme Court ruling said that no future hunt could be held without a comprehensive state management plan for the growing bear population. The 2003 hunt was the first held in New Jersey in 30 years. “It’s ridiculous, especially when I heard two hunters were chased out of the woods by bears,” said Susan Kehoe, a local wildlife photographer and anti-hunting activist. “I’ve never, ever been threatened by bears. I think (this is) the thrill of sensationalizing this into a bear hunt. I have seen bears play and they have completely ignored me.” Kehoe also was upset with Bradley’s attitude toward his decision of approving the hunt. Having attended a meeting about the state’s Highlands Preservation Act in May, Kehoe said she had spoken with the commissioner “politely” then, after having been “harassed” by hunters earlier. On her birthday on Sept. 30, Kehoe then sent a brief e-mail to Campbell, saying that “an announcement of ‘No BEAR Hunt’ would be one of the best presents I can get.” In his reply 12 minutes later, Campbell replied “I would not think of giving you the same birthday present two years in a row!” “He knew all along he was going to have the bear hunt, I’m assuming,” contended Kehoe, who sent a copy of the e-mails to Straus Newspapers, the parent company of this paper. “I personally feel that if the hunt goes through, they might as well eliminate the Critter Can program. We’ve had people working so hard, and we have bureaucrats fabricating their stories to promote the hunt, while others are dedicated to helping to prevent bears from getting into their garbage.” The so-called Critter Cans are trash containers with screw-on lids that some local communities are subsidizing in an effort to remove household garbage from the menu for bears. According to the Associated Press, some 4,000 people have already applied for licenses to hunt next month. In an earlier press release from another animal rights organization, opponents of the hunt contended that a plan to examine the use of “non-lethal contraceptives” and further awareness programs about avoiding bears was “just a ploy to try and present an image that is not biased or tied to hunting factions such as sportsmen’s federations, hunting clubs and arms manufacturers.” Kehoe said she will support any organized efforts by groups such as the Bear Education and Resource Group (BEAR). That organization held a rally protesting the hunt in West Milford Saturday and is urging its members to call and E-mail acting-Gov. Richard Codey and Governor-elect John Corzine asking that the hunt be cancelled. Kehoe, a Sussex County resident who said the joy of watching bears play helped her recover from an bout with cancer, said, “I’m not going down without fighting for these bears. They were there for me and they gave me the strength to go on. “When I was home recuperating, just watching the bears play with their cubs in a peaceful existence — it was the best medicine anybody could have asked for.”