N.J. Gov. Corzine’s Bear Mess He Denies
November 13, 2008
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has created a black bear mess in his state. It all began when he claimed shortly after being elected governor that New Jersey would never have a bear hunt. He said non-lethal methods to control bears would work.
I wonder if the governor considers the death of 31 black bears at the hands of his law enforcement and game management people non-lethal? According to Bruce Scruton of the New Jersey Herald, this year so far 31 bears have been killed because of human/bear interaction problems. This compares with 18 over the same period last year.
The latest victim was a female bear that had been radio-collared and tracked by GPS. Using data from the tracking device, authorities located the bear and killed it.
Reports of complaints in the Garden State have skyrocketed by 255%, according to Scruton, but the blind governor continues to say that black bears aren’t a problem in his state. (I wonder if he thinks Wall Street doesn’t have a problem either?)
The last bear hunt was in 2005. 298 bears were harvested, resulting in a drop in bear problem reports. In 2006, after the courts approved a Bear Management Plan, which included a bear hunt, head of the Department of Environmental Protection, Liza Jackson, tossed the plan away leaving the fish and game department without a bear management plan. Since that time, the excuse seems to be that New Jersey can’t have a bear hunt because the state has no bear plan.
In the meantime, John Rigalo, a regional vice president of the state Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, who also has a degree from Rutgers University in wildlife biology, fears that with an uncontrolled population of black bears, the state is sitting on a time bomb waiting for a serious encounter between a human and a bear.
“We’re going to have a serious problem. Somebody is going to get hurt and possibly hurt real bad,” he said of the increased incidents in the report. “We all know there’s just too many bears around.”
Rigalo also said that Corzine made this mess by turning his back on public input and disregarding his own scientists. He says Corzine might know Wall Street but he doesn’t know wildlife. (Maybe he does know Wall Street and that’s why his bears are giving him a headache.)
Tom Remington
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[...] According to the Black Bear Blog (yes, the Black Bear Blog), the population of black bears is growing and human-bear encounters along with it. The reason? The Corzine Administration has disallowed bear hunts since 2005 and has no plan in place at all now to properly manage the situation. So, it’s just a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed. John Rigalo, a regional vice president of the state Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs says: …Corzine made this mess by turning his back on public input and disregarding his own scientists. He says Corzine might know Wall Street but he doesn’t know wildlife. (Maybe he does know Wall Street and that’s why his bears are giving him a headache.) [...]