There will be no black bear hunt in New Jersey this year. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette has not signed off on the updated Comprehensive Black Bear Management Plan and without such a plan, the Fish and Game Council cannot carry out a hunting season.
The Division of Fish and Game, part of DEP, posted on its website that on June 21, 2021, New Jersey’s Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy (CBBMP) expired, “and as such, there is no black bear hunt in 2021.” The message read that following the Supreme Court ruling on Sept. 27, 2007, no black bear hunt can happen without a “properly-promulgated CBBMP proposed by the New Jersey Fish and Game Council and approved by the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.”
This is an election year and incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy has made political headlines about opposing any bear hunt in the state. While courts said he could not usurp the Fish and Game Council’s mandate to set hunting seasons based on management plans, he did prohibit black bear hunting on all state-owned lands last year. Since the DEP commissioner is a governor appointment, the fact LaTourette did not sign off on the updated plan was expected, said Fish and Game Council member Phil Brodhecker.
Public lands make up 12% of the acreage in the state’s five Black Bear Management zones where hunting is permitted. But in the three years leading up to that ban, the state lands accounted for more than 40% of the black bear harvest.
Brodhecker is a farmer representative to the Council and has been on the board for more than a decade. He said a lack of management plans means the division will have no way to control the bear population.
Senator Steve Oroho and Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths, Republicans whose district is within the bear hunt zones, called Murphy’s action “a divisive political play” that increases the likeliness of dangerous human encounters with bears. “Once again, Murphy is more concerned about politics. Hunts effectively controlled the bear population since 2010, and reports of nuisance and damage were cut in half during that time,” said Space, a member of the Assembly Agriculture Committee and a co-chairman of the NJ Angling, Hunting and Conservation Caucus, in a statement to the New Jersey Herald. Wirths said there are too many bears for the environment to support, causing them to wander into neighborhoods in search of food and shelter. Responsible hunting controls mitigate this issue.
Cody McLaughlin, spokesman for the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, said the black bear population is continuing to grow and farmers in south Jersey are seeing more bears than ever. McLaughlin said the bear hunt issue likely will become a hot topic in this year’s governor’s race and said it should stand as an important reminder to get out and vote, especially after seeing the obvious results of no hunt.
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