Bear Group

2024: ACTION FOR BEARS

Bear advocacy is critical to ensure bears are permanently protected. Our education efforts will continue until all residents become Bear Smart champions. But we also need new activists to fight for bears! Please get this new information out to everyone you know.

The bear population is less than half of Fish & Game Council’s (“Council”) 2022 estimate AND in November, the New Jersey court said the adoption of the 2022 emergency bear hunt violated state law and basically said the hunt should not have taken place.

While this ruling exposed the ruse, it came too late for the 114 bears killed in December of 2022.

ACTION

  • Email Gov. Murphy
  • Tweet on X: @GovMurphy #SaveNJBears
  • Tell Governor Murphy that the ruse of 2022 was exposed and there is no justification for the bear hunt to continue throughout his administration. The “emergency,” the hunt, the population estimate, and the complaints were a sham that led to the deaths of 114 bears in 2022 and 331 bears in 2023.

New talking point:

  • The Council can fool the governor and the DEP Commissioner, but the bears still have the public behind them. The public comment period showed that a whopping 83.7% of the comments received opposed the bear hunt. This is amazing considering the Division and Council tried their best for this number to be much lower by scheduling the comment period during the holidays and first month of Winter.

KEEP UP THE PRESSURE

  • Refute bear lies. Whenever and wherever (newspaper, social media, radio, etc.) you see lies about bears, please counter it by commenting or writing a letter to the editor. See more information below on letter writing.
  • Use these facts:
    • Bear hunts are cruel and do not reduce complaints or incidents.
    • Legislators who care about reducing bear incidents should support legislation that
      limits bears access to human food, such as the new feeding ban (below).
    • Bear Smart initiatives (education, garbage control, and other nonlethal methods) prevent incidents with bears. Visit Bear Smart for more information.
    • Complaints and incidents rise and fall during hunts as well as nonhunting years.
    • The number of bears do not correlate with increased incidents.
    • The number one cause of incidents is human behavior.
  • Support Priority Legislation: A new bill, S765/A360, which will strengthen the current feeding ban law, is designed to reduce bear complaints and incidents. Lobby your legislators to co-sponsor and support S765/A1967. Use this Fact Sheet.
  • Get involved and STAY involved. Help us educate the public and support us financially so we can continue our work to permanently protect black bears. Contact us to join us at educational outreach events.

Write pro-bear letters to the editor.

Letters have a huge impact on policy makers. For every person who writes a letter, they know thousands of others feel the same way. Letters are also free advertising for black bear protection in New Jersey. Keep your letters short. Use the points above and go here for more information. For a list of papers and contact email, click here. Let us know when you are published!

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Follow us here to stay up-to-date on everything that is happening with our bears, the hunt, and important actions we will ask you to take.

Coalition to Protect New Jersey Black Bears

The Coalition is a broad group of state and national organizations dedicated to black bear protection. If you are interested in having your group join, please email us.

Coalition members: Animal Protection League of New Jersey, Bear Group, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Animals United New Jersey, Humane Rescue Alliance/St. Hubert’s, The Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust, Jersey Shore Wildlife Rescue, League of Humane Voters of New Jersey, Lesniak Institute for American Leadership, New Jersey Voters for Animals, People for Animals, Inc., Sierra Club, New Jersey Chapter, South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter