State to do survey about black bears
12/03/07 18:31 Filed in: NJ Bear
Issue
By
MICHAEL RISPOLI
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON - If Yogi or Boo-Boo have been stealing pic-a-nac baskets in northwest New Jersey, the state Department of Environmental Protection wants to know.
Later this month, in a move that would make Jellystone Park's Ranger Smith proud, the DEP plans a sweep across five counties - Bergen, Morris, Passaic, Sussex, and Warren - to find out if residents and businesses have been intentionally or unintentionally feeding black bears.
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON - If Yogi or Boo-Boo have been stealing pic-a-nac baskets in northwest New Jersey, the state Department of Environmental Protection wants to know.
Later this month, in a move that would make Jellystone Park's Ranger Smith proud, the DEP plans a sweep across five counties - Bergen, Morris, Passaic, Sussex, and Warren - to find out if residents and businesses have been intentionally or unintentionally feeding black bears.
Conservation officers, park police and environmental inspectors will go around communities where black bear complaints have been prevalent and see if residents' and businesses' garbage disposal, pet food storage or bird feeders are prompting bears to leave the woods and come into their yards. DEP Deputy Commissioner for Natural Resources John S. Watson, Jr. said residents in violation will be given instructions on how to avoid bears feeding in their backyards, another step in an effort to use nonlethal methods to curb bear-human interaction. "Employing these methods of avoidance is good for everyone; it's good for the people, it's good for their pets, it's good for their livestock, and it's good for the black bear because it won't call them into communities," said Watson. "We don't want people to be attracting bears out of the woods and into their communities." Violators will receive a written warning for their first offense. Under a 2002 state law banning the intentional feeding of bears, violators will be fined up to $1,000 for subsequent offenses. Doris Lin, the lawyer representing the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance and the Bear Education and Resource Group, applauded the effort to enforce the anti-feeding law but said her groups "hope the focus of the sweep is not punitive, but corrective." Some lawmakers, however, seem fed-up with all this talk about bears. "We don't need a DEP SWAT team telling us how to live our lives," said Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose, R-Sussex. Sen. Anthony R. Bucco, R-Morris, said it was "absolutely ridiculous" the state budget is appropriating $850,000 toward expanding bear education and research programs "when there are more important issues in this state."
