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| HSUS image |
“No bear hunt in 2021.” Those few words brought joy to the countless people
who have fought for years to hear them.
New Jersey’s record for black bear hunts is inconsistent at best, from
annual-or-more hunts to no hunt.
This year marks the end of Gov. Murphy’s
first term, before which, he made a campaign promise to end the bear hunt . . .
and then proceeded to weasel out of that vow with no change at all or easily-circumvented
half measures designed to please everyone.
No one was satisfied. And hundreds
of bears died.
Now, with Murphy’s re-election campaign
underway, came the recent news of no hunt. Does that mean our governor has come to like
bears? Does he feel belated regret at
the earlier bear slaughter on his watch? Has he “seen the (humane) light”?
No.
“It’s directly related to our
relentless work,” says Angi Metler, executive director of the Animal Protection
League of NJ, an organization that has long fought for NJ’s black bears and
against bear hunts.
This time around, among other things, APLNJ
· formed an active bear coalition with other groups also
against the hunt;· assured there were animal advocates everywhere Murphy went, talking
about bears and challenging him on bear hunts;· reached out to higher-up members of Murphy’s staff;
· argued for bears on billboards and airplane banners.
“We didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer,”
Metler says, adding, “This is the work we’ve done for almost 30 years. We never gave up and we never will – not till
the bears are permanently protected and we’re not bouncing from governor to
governor.”
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| Bill Lea image |
For her and APLNJ, the next crucial step
is implementing a non-lethal bear management plan for New Jersey. Other states have led in this effort, and NJ
can learn from them.
So there’s much more vital work to be
done for our bears. Metler hopes only that
a particular after-effect of success — that some activists celebrate, but then
go away – won’t happen this time. This
bear-hunt fight isn’t over yet!
As for this fall’s gubernatorial election,
nothing could be easier: simply compare what Murphy and his rival say about the
bear hunt. That should settle it for all
of us who abhor it.
Babies in the
burbs
It’s baby animal
season and a recent story about baby-rescuers includes new and surprising
details about how deer mamas keep their babies safe before and after they leave
temporarily to forage for food. But: what
if a doe goes missing instead of returning to her baby?
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| APLNJ image |
In that case, for
some lucky fawns in an area north of New York City, members of Animal Nation, a
rescue group based in Rye, NY, step in . . . in unbelievable doe-imitating ways.
And they must do so swiftly and silently
so the saved baby deer doesn’t imprint and think s/he’s a human. That would make it very hard to release the
animal back into the wild.
There are also
baby groundhogs, hawks, great horned owls, squirrels, waterfowl, and more, all recipients
of help from Animal Nation and its affiliates. The organization president, Patrick Moore, is an unpaid volunteer who “can’t help
helping the animals” – if necessary, treating overflow babies-in-need in his
bathroom!
And there, for
instance, he may keep orphaned fawns together, assuring that they bond with their
own kind.
Moore’s also a
full-time firefighter who, because of his work for animals and people, may get just
4 hours of sleep a night during baby-animal season. https://tinyurl.com/3mdfnjah
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| NYTimes image |
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