Slow start for bear hunt extension
The four-day extension of the 2015 Black Bear Hunt is off to a sluggish start, as Wednesday’s numbers were the lowest of the seven tallied days so far, coming in at just 17 bruins harvested.
Of the 17, 11 were killed in Sussex County, three in Warren, two in Morris, and one in Passaic.
The lowest figure of last week’s six-day hunt was 24, on Thursday, Dec. 10. The middle of the week regularly has lower totals than the first day of the hunt and the weekend, when more hunters take off from work to participate.
DEP spokesperson Bob Considine said officials are anticipating lower harvest numbers for the four-day expansion.
“Beyond the fact that it’s another week later into the season when the bears are starting to den, there’s not as many hunters out there,” Considine said. “We find in the first week, a lot of hunters take time of work in advance because it’s a scheduled hunt. As the four-day expansion was dependent on harvest numbers, not as many hunters made the same plans. We’re also looking at rainy weather today and a much colder day on Saturday. So we would expect the numbers to stay low on those days as well.”
Considine, who said one day of results was not enough to project the full four-day extension, said officials will not be changing next year’s hunt based on the results of the next few days.
“Not reaching 20 percent this year will not affect next year’s hunt,” Considine said. “The amendments are not based on one year’s worth of data. For example, this year’s updates came after five years of data. We look at trends.”
The extension runs through Saturday and is an attempt by the state Department of Environmental Protection to bring the harvest rate of bears in New Jersey to more than 20 percent for the season.
The six-day hunt killed 472 black bears, including 52 in Morris County, an estimated 18 percent of the population. That figure is up significantly from seven percent in 2014.
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While the additional 17 bears brings the total to 489 on the year, the overall percentage of the total population remains at 18 percent, according to officials. That percentage is based on monitoring 133 tagged bears that were available for harvest.
At this pace, it is unlikely the total bears harvested will surpass 2010’s record of 592.
For all information on hunt, go to www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/bearseason_info.htm, or www.njfishandwildlife.com/bearfacts.htm to learn more about black bears in New Jersey.
Staff Writer Michael Izzo: 973-428-6636; mizzo@GannettNJ.com