Black bear population, complaints double in New Jersey. Here’s where most were reported – Daily Record

Sightings and nuisance reports about black bears more than doubled in New Jersey from 2019 to 2020. Their population also doubled in the last two years, figures show. 

In 2019, state residents reported 169 bear sightings, a year later the number jumped to 349, or 71%, according to Department of Environmental Protection figures. 

During the same time, damage and nuisance reports involving black bears increased from 122 in 2019 to 268 in 2020 or 62% , figures show.

Black bears now inhabit most of New Jersey except for a few coastal towns along the Delaware Bay, South Jersey and along the Hudson River.

While pro-hunting groups attribute the increase to the additional hunting regulations put in place by Gov. Phil Murphy, state officials are chalking up the increase to the state’s coronavirus shutdown and the stay-at-home crowd. 

“The bear population is exploding and, with it, bear-human conflicts are on the rise like never before,” said Cody McLaughlin, spokesman for New Jersey Outdoor Alliance. “It’s a strikingly obvious correlation for anyone with a calculator, education in arithmetic, and an ounce of honesty in them.”

Lawrence Hajna, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said “reports may have increased due to more people being at home seeing bears as they disperse into habitats.”

Those against the bear hunt say the issue can be resolved by educating people about bears and encouraging better garbage control to keep them away from populated areas.

All agree bears will be an issue in November’s gubernatorial election.

The bear numbers released by the Division of Fish and Wildlife, part of the Department of Environmental Protection, don’t include any reported sightings or incidents made to local or state police.

Where the bears are

InHunterdon County, where the bear count went from 83 to 85, there was little change. However in other areas there was a dramatic increase. Bergen County went from 20 incident reports to 75 and urban Hudson County went from zero in 2019 to five complaints in 2020.

Gloucester County didn’t have any bear sightings or other reports in 2019, but had 23 last year and Middlesex County went from a single report in 2019 to 16 in 2020.

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Sussex County, which has always had a black bear population, even when they were almost extirpated in the state, had the most reports in both 2019 with 274, and 2020 with 504, or an 84% increase.

Passaic County’s overall incidents rose from 114 to 148 during the same time span, while Warren County’s increased from 142 to 191.

So many bears

The New Jersey black bear population has made a strong comeback since the 1950s when they had dwindled down to the hundreds.

The estimated bear population in the fall of 2020 was at 3,158, the third-highest this century, according to the Division of Fish and Wildlife. In 2014, DFW biologists estimated there were 3,606 bears in the woods of northwestern New Jersey. The number in 2010 was pegged at 3,272.

As with any wildlife population, the counts are the result of mathematical calculations. DEP spokesman Larry Hajna said biologists use the widely-accepted Lincoln-Peterson Index to estimate the bear population. Bears are live-captured, marked with an ear tag and a tattoo on the inner lip and released. 

But those estimates are only done for the northwestern part of the state where bear hunting has been allowed. The area is roughly west of Interstate 287 and north of Interstate 78 and divided into six zones with hunting allowed in five.

Yet, according to dispersion maps produced by DFW, the hunting zones cover only about one-third of what is now considered black bear range within the state.

And there have been no population studies of those areas which include eastern Morris County, much of Bergen County and the rest of the state south from Essex and Somerset counties.

Nuisances?

The state classifies black bear complaints into three categories:

• Category I, the most serious, includes incidents such as agriculture damage, unprovoked dog attacks, human attacks, aggressive behavior, entry and attempted entry to homes and property damage. Also includes protected livestock kills, rabbit attacks, vehicle or tent entry and protected bee hive destruction.
• Category II includes unprotected livestock and hive attacks, provoked dog attack, entry into a campsite, garbage and nuisance.
• Category III are complaints about bird feeders, bears found either dead or injured, a bear in an urban area, simple sightings and vehicle strikes.

Nuisance bear reports more than doubled in one year from 122 in 2019 to 268 in 2020. Following that were bear-in-garbage issues from 137 to 216 and home entries from 10 in 2019 to 16 last year. 

Local enforcement

Vernon’s Police Department has undergone bear incident training, said Chief Dan Young. The rural North Jersey department recorded 42 bear calls in 2019 and 49 in 2020. However, there are many more times that officers get dispatched to an area because of a bear sighting.

He said officers often will patrol an area and watch as the bear goes about its own routine. 

“We respect that we live among them,” he said, adding that sometimes just a quick blast of the car’s siren is enough to move the bear along quicker.

“We don’t get concerned when they (bears) just walk through a neighborhood,” he said. The concern level does go up if there are children present or the bear is near a park.

Hunting bears

According to the DEP management plan, hunting is the method of population control for black bears. Since 2016 the state has held a six-day archery hunting season in October and a six-day shotgun season in early December to coincide with the annual deer season.

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However the number of bears killed during the hunt can vary widely, depending on weather conditions.

In the past five years there have been 1,995 bears killed by hunters and of those, 1,547 were in October by bow and arrow.

In the 2019 and 220 seasons, Gov. Phil Murphy ordered state-owned lands, including parks, forests and wildlife management areas, be closed to bear hunting. 

While it is the Fish and Game Council that sets the hunting seasons, Murphy argued that he had the power, as governor, to regulate what can be done on state lands.

The state’s Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy is expected to expire in late spring, which Murphy said will allow him to ban all bear hunting.

Not so fast, claim the pro-hunting groups that were responsible for the first hunting  policy achieved through the courts in 2010.

Their legal argument is two-fold: the old plan remains in effect until a new one is approved and the black bear hunt is still in the 2021 game code.

“This is going to be, bar none, a top tier issue in this year’s election, count on it,” said Cody McLaughlin, a spokesman for the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance. “The NJOA and other like-minded conservation groups are intent on taking center-stage this year and standing up to this Governor’s feckless leadership and total ignorance of the science.”

McLaughlin said the NJOA and other groups are telling the governor: “We told you so.”

‘No garbage, no bears’

“Once they find an easily accessible food source, like garbage in a housing development, they will lose their wariness of people and may return to the available food source,” according to the division’s guidance.

A major argument of the pro-bear/anti-hunting lobby is that DEP does little to encourage better garbage control, especially in areas with high bear populations.

“It is a fact that  human provided  foods abundantly available to bears in human environments generates nuisance complaints—not the number of bears,” said Janet Pisar, a pro-bear activist. “As bears are reduced and  removed, the surviving ‘robust bear population’ moves into the territories where dense calorie food is available.”

She said her research shows there were “a mere five violations written between 2016 and Oct. 31, 2020.” She said earlier records from 2005-2009, “reveal just four violations written, three on a single day.”

Pisar also distrusts Division of Fish and Wildlife, calling it a “vehemently pro-hunt agency” and because the division is the one that collects the complaints, “there can never be public trust in its self-serving reporting.”

The numbers provided by the DEP, however, differ.

“Division of Fish and Wildlife Conservation police officers routinely patrol for numerous types of violations so placing a number on hours spent on just garbage enforcement is not possible,” wrote Hajna.

He said that in 2020, officers issued 24 verbal warnings, 20 written warnings and four summonses.

The DEP, other than hunting, uses the following to control population, said Hajna.

• Public education on common-sense practices that reduce the risk of negative black bear behavior on humans, their homes, their property and their communities;
• Strict enforcement of the law on bear feeding and garbage containment;
• Issuance of depredation permits to farmers and others with agricultural interests who can show that bears are causing damage. The permits allow them to shoot and kill problem bears. 
• Non-lethal aversive conditioning techniques on nuisance bear and, where necessary, euthanizing high-risk, dangerous bears.