willowbrook - maybe we can start with humans with this brilliant strategy to keep "healthy population"

And your alternative solution is........?

How about hunters hunting other hunters?

John, I like your idea!!! lol

I do know this "has" to be done, but I really don't like it. Same with deer hunting.

The alternative solution is human population management. Duh. It's not an us or them scenario. We need them to balance nature and ensure our own survival. Have you ever thought that maybe we have over populated ourselves and that's why their natural predators are gone? If we would give them some space, they would manage themselves.

These animals natural predators are gone.

Willowbrook, which animal exactly is a predator to a bear??? Your logic is so flawed it amazes me, the predators are needed to keep the grazers in check. You upset nature's dynamic in either way and you have the scenario you described.

so...my question to those that say we have to "thin the numbers because their natural predators are gone"(willowbrook)...exactly what is the "natural predator" of the bear?...is there something up the food chain from these guys...and if your argument is that your statement was about deer...the natural predator of the deer...mountain lions,wolves....and bear...and we have hunted down most wolves and mountain lions in this country to dangerously low numbers as it is...this whole thing with people hunting predators is just about folks who get their rocks off by killing stuff...then trying to justify later...tell ya what...prove to the world that you've got a pair...no more guns or bows...hunt with a sharp stick and a knife...i'm sure everyone would be okay with that solution.

@Lynn W

Unfortunately, we (humans, top predator on earth) are their natural predators and/or enemies now.

willowbrook is right, which is why I am planning a hunting trip to China who has quite the population issue, I mean we are animals and certainly overpopulated, so someone has to keep it in check....right?

DiHrdLbrl....not much of a nature person are you? There are no predators for grown black bears in NJ (because there are no brown bears). However, for the cubs, it's another story. Wolves and coyotes routinely prey on black bear cubs where they co-exist. Eagles even takes cubs on occasion. Other predators include bacteria and viruses that spread through the population when they over populate. Oh yes, let's not forget that adult bears will eat another bears cubs.

I'm all for humans hunting humans too.

And Willowbrook...No, I have NEVER seen a starving deer or bear.......have you?????. The bears that they are hunting are DEEP in the woods, and are not the bears that seem to encounter humans. This hunt is horrible and doesn't make a difference in the number of human encounters.

Also, has anyone thought of HOW a hunter will carry a 250 lb. bear for a few miles thru the woods and out to his truck?? Has anyone else heard that bear meat doesn't taste very good either? It's a total TROPHY hunt, so they can get their bear rugs. It's SICK and CRUEL.

But, I would LOVE a hunter's skin to use as a doormat. Yeah!

hs321 is correct, thanks for answering before me. These folks seem to have no knowledge of how the animal populations came to be the way they are now. Man's influence on the land has been significant and we are now to the point where even their snotty little comments about killing people would not work. Poor decisions have been made in the past that allowed the coyotes, wolves, panthers, and predator birds to be virtually eliminated from the local eco-system. Now we are reintroducing these species into some of the areas in the country to help balance the system. But in some areas, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, that is why they still need to count the populations and cull when needed. Sorry you find it offensive, but it is necessary if we are to keep other species from going the way of the passenger pigeon.

To Carol - yes, I've seen starving, and dying animals, I live in the country. I can tell from the majority of the comments, these folks have no clue what it is like to care for animals, let alone work to ensure the preservation of the wild animals.

The tree huggers will never get it and trying to explain the over population, starvation and disease is a waste of time to these thick headed IDIOTS. E xplaining wildlife conservation is way above there intelligence level. And btw for the dullard who said bea rmeat doesn't taste very good anyway what were you doing eating it? Go worry about things way more important than thinning a population of bears like the STATE OF THIS COUNTRY THAT ITS IN!!!!!

Seriosuly Carol?? Of course you have never seen a starving bear or deer, most generally they avoid human beings. ...an over populated deer herd will decimate orchards and crops very very quickly. A bear will look for food if there is not enough in unpopulated areas in neighborhoods and families. It makes perfect sense to keep the population levels realistic. I do NOT like to hunt, and dont allow people on my property to hunt, but it is ABSOLUTELY necessary to cull the herds.

hmmm...bear meat does taste good! i know, i did not eat beef until i was 9 yrs old, until then we subsisted off of wild meat totally, and bear was one of those meats, my mother could cook any wild meat to a wonderfully juicy, mouth watering, melt in your mouth, she knew how to cook it so it was not stringy or hard to chew, ALL venison and bear meat, they should take the bears that were killed, and process it for food for the needy, at soup stations...yes they could do this, although it would take very good management to be sure the meat is not contaminated, but it could be done, why waste ALL that meat? i mean come on...you know how many people would die for a good stew with meat?

@DiHrdLbrl:

These animals natural predators are gone.

"Willowbrook, which animal exactly is a predator to a bear???"

It used to be Mountain Lions - Cougars, but they've already been hunted close to extinction.

The tree huggers will never get it

You, sir, don't get it. I don't think anybody is saying that occasional hunting of an animal population isn't needed. However, the reason you give for it could just as easily apply to the human population which now numbers over 7 billion. Who is doing anything about that? Now, I'm not advocating going around killing other humans outside of an occasional joke, but what is being done to control the human birth rate? Nothing! Your justification to kill stuff is laced with hypocracy. In a few decades, you're really going to start experiencing starvation and disease.

Sorry Carol but I have to disagree with you on one subject.

Has anyone else heard that bear meat doesn't taste very good either?

Although not a hunter myself, I have taste bear meat (stewed, ground, and fried). Have you? The hunters I know, hunt for food. I have had venison, bear, & wild turkey in my freezer from hunters. Most hunters are nottrophy hunters. Heck, I even had a friend that flew to Zimbabwe to hunt. Guess where the meat goes? To the local population (since it can't be shipped back).

If you don't enjoy hunting, then don't do it (as I do).

BTW - The hunter usually carry or drag out their kills. You might want to browse Cabela's web site.

DMAC, "tree huggers" do get the problem of over population. "Tree huggers" would argue for a restoration of the natural balance -- reintroduction of natural predators and an establishment of a natural means of population control, as opposed to artificial "population control" comprised of gun toting humans who use over population as an excuse to kill things for their own enjoyment. All you so-called "hunters" who say you do it for the good of the animals are a joke. At least have the guts to be honest about your motivations -- you want to kill things because you think it is fun.

Carol-3037059

I'm all for humans hunting humans too.

And Willowbrook...No, I have NEVER seen a starving deer or bear.......have you?????. The bears that they are hunting are DEEP in the woods, and are not the bears that seem to encounter humans. This hunt is horrible and doesn't make a difference in the number of human encounters.

Also, has anyone thought of HOW a hunter will carry a 250 lb. bear for a few miles thru the woods and out to his truck?? Has anyone else heard that bear meat doesn't taste very good either? It's a total TROPHY hunt, so they can get their bear rugs. It's SICK and CRUEL.

But, I would LOVE a hunter's skin to use as a doormat. Yeah!

Hello person who doesn’t seem to live in NJ. I’m sorry, but you don’t appear to have much of a working knowledge base in regards to what you’re talking about so much as you’re just voicing an opinion.

I’m not going to say where I live in NJ, but it’s in the suburbs and I’ve seen bears on multiple occasions outside of ‘the woods’. Unfortunately, their habitat has been pushed to the point where they’re easily within a few hundred yards of certain living quarters and the territory a bear will travel across can be extensive when they’re looking for food.

So yes, even those bears that are typically deep in the woods will come out when food is scarce; especially as winter approaches and many are still working on their winter reserves prior to hibernation. This is also true in the spring for the sows that have cubs and need even more food to feed their young.

You don’t carry the whole bear out of the woods by yourself; you gut it on the spot to lighten the load and then drag the body out manually or using an atv (ideal). No one goes bear hunting alone and you’re typically going to be involving at least 3-4+ adults when you go out for bear, so it’s not much weight to carry out as the bears in NJ aren’t very big compared to out west.

I'm all for the hunt, as someone who lives in a NJ area that’s prone to bears, but I don't have any interest in participating as I don’t think it's right to hunt & kill anything you're not going to eat. The only real shame is that this is basically a trophy hunt because as has been mentioned, bear is...an acquired taste (i can say this from experience) as it's incredibly gamey. It's not like a nice back strap of deer venison where you can make it taste really good, the consistency is more akin to shoe leather that's been sitting in a croc pot for a few hours.

Carol, starving animals usually don't knock on your door when they're dying. Some of us do go out in the woods and see it happen during bad winters, just because you're sitting in your house doesn't mean it isn't happening.

So you don't like bear meat, who cares? A 250 lb bear really isn't that big either, an Amish man shot one here in PA that was 579lbs. That deep woods theory is off a smidge too, haven't looked up what a black bears range is have you? I've counted 10 different bears within 2 miles of my house this fall.

@ saddened-1829725

To be fair, this hunt is a reintroduction of a natural predator as bears do not have natural predators in NJ once they get past the 1-2 year mark.

Your notion of lumping all of the hunters into one group of blood crazed individuals who are out for nothing but blood is pretty laughable. Obviously you have no working knowledge of what you’re commenting on beyond your feelings for the animal in question.

@ John, your post 2.18 - your comment has much merit. But as long as we have a portion of the population whose belief is to "save every baby" and "save every animal" (and have as many babies as you want) no matter what the cost, (And are incredibly vocal about pushing their opinions on everyone else and insisting that everyone else must think like they do.) Nothing will be done until everyone is in trouble. Then it will be truly, "survival of the fittest." Maybe the silent portion of the population will finally stand up and say enough is enough.

Carol-3037059: Bear meat tastes fantastic. It only tastes bad if you are used to only eating the bland beef that passes for meat in our country. Bear burgers are the best.

Based on estimates.... So, if they are off bah-bye bears.
Call me an idiot (I know some child will not be able to resist), but there has to be better solutions than releasing teenagers to kill off animals.

I love how they ALLOW protestors. This whole being allowed to do something in the US has gone seriously off the freedom track...

Julie, Asian nations just love cat meat. While the domestic cat is an Earth killer, the bears are in the eco-nomics of keeping the Earth alive and life creating and supporting. Bears are part of the glue that holds Earth altogether while the domestic cat is a top agent of extinction globally.

Man has it wrong; they should be shooting cats and not bears!

I know this sounds weird, but part of the reason for the high numbers of black bears harvested in NJ is because they are a healthy and successful population. This is due to hunters. Hunters are one of the main contributors to habitat protection. From the price of a hunting license, the tag to be allowed to hunt black bear, the percentage of tax from the firearms and ammunition... it goes into protecting the habitat those bears live in and paying the people that regulate the hunt. This is not a senseless slaughter, but a controlled culling that in the long term benefits the bears and the land they live on.

Must be lots of "tree huggers" as another poster put it. Collapsing the truth will not make your "rainbow and butterflies" opinion of nature correct and obtainable. At least it if fortunate there are folks like me out there are sincerely interested in preserving our wild life. Can't say that about the collapsers since they have offered nothing in ways of alternatives to the hunts that will preserve the wildlife population.

I'm not a hunter, don't like to kill things. But if humans don't keep the numbers in check, humans especially would be your little sister or brother if you lived close to the edge of town in many communities would become the hunted, by bears, mountain lions, wolves, etc. Though it would help with the population control in many areas, what if it was your child or sibling?

Until "man" controls his population, we have to control wild animals.

Willowbrook is absolutely on target, although many of you apparently don't like what she/he has to say. Several people have said that they have never seen a starving or ill deer or bear. I have, and trust me, a well-placed bullet is far more humane. I suspect there is an overpopulation because the bears food sources....trash cans, dumpsters, and even peoples homes....have spurred breeding. When food is plentiful, any animal will produce more offspring.

Unfortunately, all of the factors needed to sustain this increased population are not reliably present all the time, and when that happens, the herd suffers. Starvation, disease, death by vehicle (commonly know as a "bumper shot") and other problems inevitably emerge and restore the balance that nature demands, and it's generally not a quick, merciful death.

Bears do have natural predators, as others have noted. Mountain lions in some areas, other predators, and each other. Bears will fight to the death over territory, food....any number of things.

All that aside, a full grown bear is a formidable sight. They are not cute, they are not cuddly, but they are very large, singleminded destruction machines. They fear little, if anything, and they will destroy whatever is in their path to the food source they want, including doors, vehicles, and people. I had a +/-400 lb black bear who smelled the brownies I was cooking and decided to come through my kitchen door after them. He didn't survive the trip, but neither did my door, which he took out with one swipe.

Oh, and that's the OTHER thing about bears...they aren't going to wander around hunting berries if there's something that smells as good or better than their usual fare, and because they are pretty close to the top of the food chain they are accustomed to getting what they want. And yes, they were here first, and may very likely still be around when all of us are gone. That does not mean that I want one in my kitchen, and if you had experienced a face-to-face with one, you wouldn't either.

Indiscriminate hunting is unforgiveable. However, careful culling of the herd, again as others have noted, improves the odds of species survival.

little known fact, the insurance companies have been quietly releasing the natural predators to deer. seems its cheaper to get a few of them to kill the deer than to pay for accidents involving them. the same animals they are releasing (mountain lions, wolves, etc) will also attack bears

Willowbrook, I agree with you. I just can't believe there's not a lot of hunters getting shot also in such a limited area, with so much competition and "shooter" excitement going on.

People that don't understand haven't seen starving, sick and in-bred animals... and spend way too much time indoors or in an area without these problems. My suggestion to change their minds, set them down in this area for a week of camping with 3,400 black bear. It's sad these same protesting people had to have their subdivisions with their giant mega homes built right in the middle of these bears habitat.

It is so easy to talk about which animals need population control when you are at the top of the food chain. Animals were fine before us, any hardships they face now are because of human intervention.

Mind you I am a hunting advocate, but only when you are consuming what you kill. Doing it just for the thrill or something to put on your wall is not ok with me.

The bears were trying to Occupy NJ without a permit.

I hunt and most around me do. We don't consider it fun, do it for the meat and not about sport. Have seen lots of "sport" hunters and there's something about the attitude, their eyes, that's disturbing.

Have always thought it would be interesting to have a "sport" season. For every 10 "sport" tags issued, there could be 1 hunter tag issued. Now that would be sport! Hunter tags would bring huge dollars into the government as well.

Just trying to think of ways to help out the economy. Kind of a win-win-win.

saddened ""Tree huggers" would argue for a restoration of the natural balance..."

Do you mean say 20,000 years ago before man arrived in the Americas and upset the balance?

Is that why all the tree huggers are packing up and moving back to Africa where humans originated?

(Don't feel bad if you haven't seen any of that happening. Neither has anyone else.)

David S-3115640

"Call me an idiot (I know some child will not be able to resist), but there has to be better solutions than releasing teenagers to kill off animals."

I'm not going to call you an "idiot", but from your statement, CLEARLY you have absolutely no knowledge of hunting. Hunting is not about turning a bunch of "teenagers" loose with guns. I don't even know where you got the idea that it is mostly teenagers doing the bear hunting in NJ. Most hunters are mature adults who actually eat what they kill. While bear may be an acquired taste, that doesn't mean their meat doesn't get eaten.

You really shouldn't criticize something that you are uninformed about. And I'd personally like to know how many of the people on here posting anti-hunting comments, are vegans. Actually, I would be willing to bet that most of them are meat eaters. Trust me, the deer that a hunter takes down and makes into steaks, lived a much better life and died in a far more humane way than the chicken that died to make your McNuggets.

What if they kill a mother that has cubs in the den? Another question I have is, don't these kind of hunters want to "bag" the big healthy ones- not the sickly skinny ones, how would that strengthen their numbers?

Don't cry Joe, there are still several horses in our area.

Wouldn't your statement alone imply that humans would be the only thing left? Last man standing. Since only humans can be a man........ And we were killing bears long before the horse meat ban was lifted.

Bear is yummy, if cooked right...

Actually Eating meat is quite dangerous to human health, even fresh killed.

The American Medical Association states that although the cholesterol in plants is extremely low it is beneficial to the human body where as the cholesterol produced by animals is not.

the cholesterol in plants behaves differently and in a beneficial way in our body versus the cholesterol produced by animals. Sitosterol blocks the intake of dietary cholesterol and reduced the level of low-density lipoprotein in our blood. This plant cholesterol is also used in the treatment of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and in the treatment of hair loss when used with Saw Palmetto. Currently there are many research studies going on, especially in the European countries, to determine other beneficial uses of this cholesterol found in plants. However, too much of a good thing can be bad for you. It has been determined that high levels of sitosterol can cause coronary diseases and tendon xanthomas, a condition that affect the tendons due to high levels of lipoprotein in the blood.

Plant Sitosterol blocks the intake of dietary cholesterol and reduced the level of low-density lipoprotein in our blood. This plant cholesterol is also used in the treatment of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and in the treatment of hair loss when used with Saw Palmetto. Currently there are many research studies going on, especially in the European countries, to determine other beneficial uses of this cholesterol found in plants. However, too much of a good thing can be bad for you. It has been determined that high levels of sitosterol can cause coronary diseases and tendon xanthomas, a condition that affect the tendons due to high levels of lipoprotein in the blood.

Eating sterol and stanol-containing foods is an easy way to lower your LDL cholesterol, which helps reduce the risk of heart disease," says Ruth Frechman, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association

On a molecular level, sterols and stanols look a lot like cholesterol. So when they travel through your digestive tract, they get in the way. They can prevent real cholesterol from being absorbed into your bloodstream. Instead of clogging up your arteries, the cholesterol just goes out with the waste.

Incidently. Every Human cells produces cholesterol however the liver, produces 75 percent of a humans natural cholesterol while they small intestine aids in both the creation and absorption of cholesterol. The natural levels in the human body are altered drastically by consuming meat.

To further reasons why not to hunt for meat, The American Cancer Society confirms with the McDougall report that: From our lips to our anus our digestive system has evolved to efficiently process plant foods. Digestion begins in the mouth with a salivary enzyme, called alpha-amylase (ptyalin), whose sole purpose is to help digest complex carbohydrates found in plant foods into simple sugars. There are no carbohydrates in meats of any kind (except for a smidgen of glycogen), so a true carnivore has no need for this enzyme – their salivary glands do not synthesize alpha amylase. The human intestine is long and coiled, much like that of apes, cows, and horses. This configuration makes digestion slow, allowing time to break down and absorb the nutrients from plant food sources. Bad Cholesterol is only found in animal foods – no plant contains bad cholesterol. The liver and biliary system of a meat-eating animal has an unlimited capacity to process and excrete cholesterol from its body – it goes out, in the bile, passing through the bile ducts and gallbladder, into the intestine, and finally, out with the stool. Humans, like other plant-eating animals, have livers with very limited capacities for cholesterol removal – they can remove only a little more than they make for themselves for their own bodies – and as a result, most people have great difficulty eliminating the extra cholesterol they take in from eating animal products. This apparent “inefficiency” is because humans have evolved on a diet of mostly plant foods (containing no cholesterol), and therefore, they never required a highly efficient cholesterol-eliminating biliary system. The resulting cholesterol buildup, when people eat meat, causes deposits in the arteries (atherosclerosis), in the skin under the eyes (xanthelasma), and in the tendons. Bile supersaturated with cholesterol forms gallstones (over 90% of gallstones are made of cholesterol). About half of all middle-aged women who live on the Western diet have cholesterol gallstones. When studying the human digestive tract, medical researchers learned that a human beings and all herbivore stomach acid is twenty times weaker than that of meat-eaters. This makes meat hard to digest and there for it begins to rot and decay inside the body before it can be properly eliminated.

God has nothing to do with hunting. God cares not what man does. Man must care what man does. Hunting is an unnatural human traits. Human beings are not naturally hunters and therefore they have no right to hunt.

If human beings were natural hunters and meat eaters, they would have the speed, strength and cunning for it, as well as the teeth, claws, and digestive track needed to kill and consume raw flesh in its purest state, (fur, bones, innards and all.)

Animals need no tools and weapons. Animals do not skin or gutter their prey with tools, nor do they cook it, season it, or tenderize it with any instruments such as knives, skewers, pots and pans.

Animals jump their prey and subdue it by biting its neck and ripping it apart were it falls victim to their attack.

In other words, animals do what comes natural to their nature. An Animal acts on instinct, when they are hungry they eat whatever food is available. Animals do not hunt people down for the sport, pride or pleasure in it, like humans do.

For hunting and fishing to be a natural human act, human beings would have to live in the wild (Or live in the ocean, rivers, streams, swamps, or lakes) while being able to jump their prey and murder it and eat it with their bare hands, strength and teeth alone. (No seasoning, tenderizing, guttering, cooking, or skinning would be necessary.)

All human hunters would be able to prepare and consume their meat naturally, without the help of tools and manmade devices that come from the imaginings of the human mind.

+1

We're not ashamed of mass slaughtering men, women, and children in the most atrocious ways, why should bears make any difference to these (now or later) potbellied microtesticled great white hunters? This is the true measure of humanzees, and whereas the suggestion of them hunting each other is made ironically, it's a desire that's deep in the crippled hearts of these childhood animal torturers. These sad sacks are of the same ilk as those who prey on old people and the mentally challenged and who cheered in the audience when that republican suggested we just let sick people die. Using a high tech weapon is no different than standing on a platform in a slaugtherhouse with a pneumatic spike killing captive animals. If they were required that, to call themselves 'hunters', they must learn to construct their own weapons from scratch limited to nonchemical weapons (wood bows, spears, knives, all metal self-forged) and possess that most important element which these vermin completely lack, courage, this craven slaugther would at least be interesting and not simply disgusting. Killing is the very least of what it is to be a 'hunter'. The distorted and overblown self-images these fatsacks have constructed for themselves out of fantasy give true definition to the term subclinical mental illness which, alas, is allowed to erupt and spread its poison over innocent animals each fall by sociopathic state officials too intellectually deficient to understand even the smallest detail of humane herd management. If the state really wanted to curb obnoxious nuisance animals, those NJ people on that TV show and their kin would be exactly the place to start. Then, as was suggested, each other. Make it a family 'sport'. What better way to increase average humanzee intelligence?

Incidentally, "bjorn" in Norske means "bear" and is the root word of the term "berserker".

There is no Humane or constructive purpose for hunting. No one has the right to kill another life form. When your rights kill or harm other life forms, they are not rights at all for the action of killing is wrong.
When you kill you destroy and put an end to the vital or active qualities of a living being and when you hunt, you invade a beings space while chasing, terrorizing and pursuing them with the intent to capture and sometimes kill. To have rights means you must respect and not violate the rights of any life unless that life gives you its consent to die. Plants leave us their seed, this is natures consent. To renew animal life you must breed.

Why do hunters try to exonerate and defend their right to kill and cause suffering all in the name of freedom and equal rights? Hunters feel that animal activists are taking away the...ir freedom to do what they love, and what they feel is “Fun” when doing what they love takes away the freedom of other life forms.

Many hunters put their own selfish needs above the needs and lives of other life forms while justifying this act with by saying it is legal to kill.
Some hunters even say:

“What could possibly be wrong with doing what you love and making use of what you kill? Most animals that humans eat are killed after living captive their entire lives by somebody who sees their slaughter as nothing more than a mundane job. But hunters LOVE to kill them. Hunters enjoy taking their lives. Isn’t it better that they leave this world knowing they gave a human being pleasure?”

It is because we share the same survival instinct with other life forms that we should respect their right to live.

Live in the midwest but grew up in the west. Started hunting at 12 and was pretty sucessful at it. Also have advanced degrees and in the early 80s did 3 years in the Peac Corp. Have traveled all over the world for work. I like guns and I liked hunting. Until the recent gun control discussion I considered myself a democrat as I have been voting that way since 76, but I guess I am not, now being called a DINO.

In Montana most of the extreme tree huggers are called "trust fund babies", sent by their parents supported by their parents and since they don't work they think everybody else should live in caves. Hunting is the harvest of a crop, animals. There is more wild game now in the west than at the turn of the century because it is controlled and managed and most of that is paid for by hunters. People from the east do not know or understand life out west. It is also the reason that no north eastern liberal will ever win a national election and since Jack Kennedy they haven't. Most of the anti hunting comments here are from people that have not the faintest idea of what they are talking about. Not long ago in Wisconsin thousands of deer were killed from helicopters by the state because overpopulation resulted in the equivalent of mad cow disease for deer. For those of you so anxious to hunt humans, don't worry overpopulation will take care of it. More and more diseases are coming and the current anti-biotics are not working. Over population of game will do the same, but they are controlled and managed.

I hear bear tastes really good

Really, Ive eaten bear meat and it tastes like shoe leather and frequently has Trichinosis.(sp?)

It's very oily. But like any meat, it can be cook properly to remove that. And most meats take to a marinade.

You have a better chance of getting Trichinosis eating pork, I personally do not like bear meat as FedUp said it's very greasy, but I'll eat the heck out of some venison.

Taste depends on what the bear has been feeding on. Best tasting and leanest sausage I ever had was bear sausage. So lean it had to be mixed with a small amount of pork just so you could form it into a patty. Cooked it in a clam shell grill and had ZERO drippings in the drip tray.

DiHrdLbrl

Trichinosis is spelled correctly but, in this case, you might also spell it " j u s t i c e ". One parasite eating another...

Well since you don't want to take up any more of their land how about me and my family move in with yours? We can build a prison just down the street too and then put the halfway house right across the street from the elementary school to save space so we don't encroach on bear habitat. There are things in this world that need to be done such as hunting. Like it or not it needs to be done.

Steve, if you are able, keep reading. I am NOT anti-hunting. But lets face it, humans DO encroach on nature (not just on wild animals but look how many fewer trees and native plants are around)? We build more and more and more and more and go farther and farther into what's left of the wilderness because we WANT TO not because we need one more elementary school or prison.

I agree that hunting is SOMETIMES a necessity. I also know that it is 100% possible to coexist with what's left of nature but many times people are too lazy and don't want to work at it because its inconvenient for them. Bears do not WANT to be near humans, they fear humans...but we leave our pet food and our trash out, enticing them to come close...then we kill them for "invading our space".

Your very existence encroaches upon nature. In the non-human world it is suvival of the fittest. They have little or no respect for their fellow creatures. Maybe you should volunteer not to exist. It would be one less human to interfere with nature!

Oy. Come on, the existence of humans, even me, is a fact. It just is. Same as bears exist. Not planning to volunteer not to exist any time soon but, quite frankly, I do my part so I'm not feeling too guilty.

Humans encroach on habitats of animals and all parts of nature and then we kill what's in our way...fact. I happen to believe that's not necessary...but then evolution didn't pass me by.

The fact is animal control is a necessary evil. No matter how careful we are about where we live, nature will encroach on us. Many animals migrate and look for easy prey. As numbers increase many are pack type animals and get bolder about attacking bigger prey. It would be just a matter of time until you could not walk out the door without a means to protect yourself. Just look back a couple hundred years at what it took just to survive. Is that really the type of world you want for your kids?

JS..."But lets face it, humans DO encroach on nature"

I never have understood the mentality that humans aren't part of nature. Did we not evolve on the planet just like every other animal? A humans house is no different than a birds nest. Neither exist without an animal constructing it, but somehow our house is not 'natural'?

Do you think if aliens were observing the planet they would think humans weren't 'natural'? Like we came from another galaxy or something.

@JS in Baltimore - I can't leave pets outdoor any longer unless they are brought in at night so the coyotes don't eat them. That is one way I co-exist with nature. (We didn't used to have coyotes, they had been hunted out long ago. They've been re-introduced into our state to help balance the deer population.) Most people have no clue what it takes to live in harmony in areas with wild animals. Pretty much, only the Farmers know, and they only represent about 1-2% of this country's population. So I would expect many short-sighted comments on this thread.

Dear Dog Brain-

This discussion is not about diet. If you want to take potshots at diet choices, take it up on another discussion. I'm 6'4", 260 pounds, and can bench 400. No meat in my diet. Shut your cakehole Dogbreath.

You will never convince the them that this is a humane practice. They simply don't understand that an over populated heard causes famine and disease. That lack of food creates a situation where larger male bears eat cubs. That an over populated area causes extreme hardship on the animal population and puts an imbalance into the food table, creating a large number of alpha predators. That when a population gets too large, they begin to wander into densely human populated areas, essentially putting their children on the menu.

To all of you singing the sad song, you can be part of the solution. Donate your house and land so these animals have more habitat. Better yet, remove yourself from the worlds population and there will be that much more space for wildlife to flourish.

Yes, but back in Paleolithic people had to hunt to survive. Today most people hunt for sport and there is no real need to hunt BEARS for survival. btw, Paleolithic humans mostly hunted herbivores and not bears. Although there are Neanderthal caves with bear remains found across Europe, these are thought to be for ceremonial purpose. Most of the food came from raindeer, horses, aurochs, and other cervids.

That when a population gets too large, they begin to wander into densely human populated areas, essentially putting their children on the menu.

EXACTLY! Just ask the people in Northern California about the mountain lions, and how many of them have had "Fido" and "miss kitty" go missing.

That when a population gets too large, they begin to wander into densely human populated areas

I partially agree with that, but a big part of the problem too is that humans have been growing at a faster pace and have started moving into the areas where the bears used to rely on getting their food supply from. Areas like Ringwood and West Milford used to be almost undeveloped and bears pretty much remained away from the humans when I lived in NJ 15 years ago. Now a good chunk of that land has been taken up by subdivisions so the bears are now simply foraging in the humans garbage for food.

Over population of humans is a different issue. Yes, humans have been encroaching on wildlife habitat. Yes, that causes a need for more animals to be killed. But that subject brings our an entirely different set of arguments and begins to tread on religion. Something I am just not willing to get into on a posting.

By the way, prehistoric humans hunted anything that got in front of their spears! If a bear was dumb enough to get shot, he was dinner that night. But bears are very smart and difficult to bag, especially with a spear!

florida84, you say there is no need to hunt for survival? you say hunting is for sport?

Tell you what, lets go to the grocery store, and we will price out the amount of meat that goes in my freezer from taking a Deer or a Bear, and i can assure you, i hunt for survival, the money i save by harvesting wild game allows me to afford heating up here in the cold Maine winters.I have no trophys on my wallsto be admired, but i have meat in the freezer for the winter, and its a lot healthier than what you buy in a grocery store.

Florida 84, they probably hunted for herbivores because carnivores had a better chance at the fight than did the paleolithic humans, there weren't guns with which to stand back and shoot with from several feet/yards away.

Fedup_Stl, don't get me wrong, I agreed mostly with what you said and am not anti the hunt at all. I'd have to believe that in older times when man would still be hunting for supper every day that the bears would have gotten smart enough eventually and moved away from NJ and its population to save themselves. But, by "protecting" them for so long they became lazy (much like humans). And as is often the case with laws we humans write, they create a whole other slew of problems for nature. It's really no different than how down here they protected alligators for decades as they were becoming extinct, and now the population is so plentiful that finding one in built up areas in peoples' backyards is almost a common occurrence. Out in the boondocks where I live the problem isn't as bad as wildlife still has a healthy fear of humans and mutual respect keeps humans away from the animals. But when you take away one of the main natural predators for animals like bears and yes that is what us humans are, then you've just legislated a mess not a solution.

People who live on the edges of the 'Arroyo Seco' which runs from the Rose Bowl into South Pasadena are constantly losing dogs and cats from their back yards which abut the brushy slopes. The loss of a German Shepherd and the subsequent discovery of very large cat tracks is cause for people to keep their human kids inside at night. I've found these same tracks on the bridle trails along the bottom of the 'Arroyo' in the vicinity of the South Pasadena Casting Club which is a little over 1 mile south of the W. Colorado Blvd overpass.

Bubby, I used to live in Pomona. We would hike the canyons you're talking about a couple of times a month. I've seen cat track there, pretty large ones. I used to hunt in Red Bluff and actually saw a 90-100 lbs cat running up the hillside across from me. I also remember reading a story about a lady in Elk Grove being eaten when she went on a trail run outside Folsom Dam. And for those that do not think that Black Bears are dangerous, go to your local zoo and ask why they aren't in the petting area.

FedUp -- Thanks for the history lesson! Exactly how many animals were shot by prehistoric man?

The only way to stop extinction, poaching, hunting accidents and all forms of illegal animal trade is to stop all forms of poaching and hunting. If poaching and hunting is stopped, balance will be restored to the Earth and nature will be returned back to her natural state. Putting an end to hunting will return the natural order of evolution back to the power of nature while taking it away from the hands of humans.

Jan-3475015,

If hunting is stopped, balance will be restored to the Earth and nature will be returned back to her natural state. Putting an end to hunting will return the natural order of evolution back to the power of nature while taking it away from the hands of interfering humans.

It is because humans have been managing a non-healthy balance of species in the environment that there is animal starvation, overpopulation, disease and sickness among herds. Before Human life came into existence and stole the land from the animals, every single inch of Earth was animal populated.

Today, because human beings are populating the planet at such a rapid rate, they need more land to develop so they can spread out and survive.

Every patch and acre of land a human being claims as their own was once an animal's home. This is a fact that no human being can argue or deny.

Before humans took the territory from the animals, the animals had more land to raise their families on. Every time a human being develops a new patch of land, they take food and shelter way from an animal's natural means of survival. Now that human beings are so wide spread, the animals must leave the little territories that they have and find their survival elsewhere.

It is most certain that when an animal enters human territory, they do not go into it armed with weapons to hunt human beings or to claim their homes.

An animal will only go into a human beings territory to find food.

When an animal is seen in human territory, instead of giving them food, relocating them and assisting their survival, human beings deem that their presence is intrusive and claim that is over population of a species.

As soon as human beings see that animals cannot survive on the small amounts of land that they left to them, they will promptly send hunters in to control the population of animal life.

Instead of equally sharing this Earth, Man dominates and subdues it with selfish arrogance thinking that their species is more worthy of land and survival then an animal.

Every animal you see crossing a street is looking for food on the other side of the road.

These animals are looking for food because human beings limited their living space on this Earth.

If truth were known, the road ways belong more to the animals than the humans for at one time every roadway and highway was an animal's home.

To effectively stop animal over population, a Geographical specialist who knows the lay of the land would have to survey the option to move excess animals to more bountiful territories restored by human beings with fresh seed.

Once the land was restored for habitation, wild life specialists would relocate excess wildlife by transporting them through means of tranquilizer guns. Stopping hunting is not only a humane way to end this growing population problem, it is also away to test each animal for disease so that they can be euthanized humanely rather than destroying entire herds at a time. (Which is done do to the fact hunters cannot tell diseased animals from non diseased.)

Hunting is an unnecessary part of human interaction with the natural environment because hunting is not a natural human skill. The natural world exists without the interference of human beings or civilization. The natural world is the material world, surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities. The elements of the natural world are mountains, trees, animals, human animals and rivers. They are not the activities performed by human animals. These activities, like hunting making up words and labels, are individual and come from free will thought and imagination.

The conservation of animal life through hunting is interfering with the natural evolution of nature. Nature does not need man’s help to survive, man needs natures help to survive. All nature needs from man is his cooperation that he will not interfere with her natural process.

The rules of nature have existed much longer than man has existed therefore Nature must be allowed to carry on without man’s impedance. It is only common sense that the more a hunter depletes this earth of wildlife, the more they deplete the meat eating animals of their food supply. To sum this up in fewer words, hunting depletes an animal’s natural resources.

It is time human domination stopped. It is time to share the planet. Nature must be allowed to handle her own, human beings must then start being responsible for human overpopulation before land runs out for all.

Around eight billion animals are killed for food every year in the U.S alone. This is a number greater than the entire human population..

Why are they running out of places to live? I don't believe bears are moving closer to humans. Its the other way around, we can't leave well enough alone and we're never happy until we invade every remaining natural space on this earth. Many people don't seem interested in learning to coexist with nature, only with obliterating it so we can have what we want.

Well NJ is the most densley populated state in the union. It's not my doing, it's just the way it is. Like I said, I have no problem with the bears in my woods. We have 4 acres, we moved in knowing about the eco system and wildlife around us, and we're okay with it. I co-exist, as does my entire neighborhood and area where I live and no one has been harmed by a bear with the exception of a few garbage cans and a coyote that got too close.

It's a sad reality that animals are the ones harmed in the process of human expansion and development, but there's co-existing with nature, and being in potential danger as a result of nature which is why humans have congregated and made dwellings to begin with.

Regarldess, the main reason for the hunt is not to benefit humans. It's to benefit the bear population which can't be sustained at the population it's at. The population, as I said, has grown in the past few years and they are running out of viable areas to live largley a result of the population boom, not humans encroaching.

I can't speak a whole lot about the bear population in NJ but we have a "lotteried hunt" down here and our populations are not nearly so big...but to be one hundred percent honest, I do acknowledge that SOMETIMES the only answer is a "herd thinning" (yeah, I know bears aren't herding animals)...its sad but sometimes true. Down here, its deer. Again, I'm not a meat eater but I do have four rescued dogs and one foster puppy - all of whom eat a prey model, raw meat & bones diet. And I have THREE freezers full of venison for them. I've been lucky enough to align myself with a few VERY responsible and ethical hunters in my area and they donate harvested deer to me and I pay for processing...so I feed the dogs for about fifty cents per pound. I'm an animal lover, an animal rights enthusiast but a realist as well. While I do believe that most human - bear conflict can be avoided by being careful and using common sense, I do realize sometimes there really is no other alternative. I just haven't quite yet been convinced that the bear population in Jersey (or here in MD) is such that it warrants annual hunts.

**For the record, NOTHING goes to waste from the deer we've been lucky enough to acquire this year. The dogs can eat ALL OF IT (skin, fur, organs, bones)...so that, along with ensuring I partner with only ethical hunters, lets me rest easy about the harvested animals I'm using in my home.

Every patch and acre of land a human being claims as their own was once an animal's home. This is a fact that no human being can argue or deny.

Before humans took the territory from the animals, the animals had more land to raise their families on. Every time a human being develops a new patch of land, they take food and shelter way from an animal's natural means of survival. Now that human beings are so wide spread, the animals must leave the little territories that they have and find their survival elsewhere.

It is most certain that when an animal enters human territory, they do not go into it armed with weapons to hunt human beings or to claim their homes.

An animal will only go into a human beings territory to find food.

When an animal is seen in human territory, instead of giving them food, relocating them and assisting their survival, human beings deem that their presence is intrusive and claim that is over population of a species.

As soon as human beings see that animals cannot survive on the small amounts of land that they left to them, they will promptly send hunters in to control the population of animal life.

Instead of equally sharing this Earth, Man dominates and subdues it with selfish arrogance thinking that their species is more worthy of land and survival then an animal.

Every animal you see crossing a street is looking for food on the other side of the road.

These animals are looking for food because human beings limited their living space on this Earth.

If truth were known, the road ways belong more to the animals than the humans for at one time every roadway and highway was an animal's home.

To effectively stop animal over population, a Geographical specialist who knows the lay of the land would have to survey the option to move excess animals to more bountiful territories restored by human beings with fresh seed.

Once the land was restored for habitation, wild life specialists would relocate excess wildlife by transporting them through means of tranquilizer guns. Stopping hunting is not only a humane way to end this growing population problem, it is also away to test each animal for disease so that they can be euthanized humanely rather than destroying entire herds at a time. (Which is done do to the fact hunters cannot tell diseased animals from non diseased.)

As the WOA warns: About 4.5 billion people have been added to the world population in just the last 60 years, according to UN. Humans interact with their surroundings far more intensely than any other species and use vast amounts of carbon, nitrogen, water, and other resources, resulting in changes to the global climate, depletion of essential energy and other natural resources and wiping out thousands of plant and animal species.

Some of these outcomes are now unavoidable; we'll have to adapt to them. But to avoid catastrophe, we need to work simultaneously on two programs: 1) influence the future path of population and 2) address the environmental and social impacts that continued population growth will have.

Wow dude. I completelly agree with you!!!! too many "single" moms around. I would rather see a bear than a 250 lbs single mom with 5 kids destroying our country with her "overproductive" uterus.

koountryking> Wild bears are fine when their population is controlled. The mere fact so many bears were tagged along with the increasing number of bear sightings in areas not normally visited by bears tells me that the bear population in some areas is out of whack. Bears, due to their size, don't have a lot of efficient and effective natural predators. If there is an adequate supply of food and an inadequate number of predators the bear population will increase.

Having camped in bear country and seen what a hungry bear and her cub can do - well, you don't want too many hungry bears along the Jersey shore. No need to be ashamed. Hunting is an activity that is as old as man.

@ Rick,

How did bears survive for hundreds of thousands of years before humans? somehow they magically managed to live without us and now they need us to regulate their population? humans should stop reproducing like rats and leave some space to other animals. 1 child policy worldwide would be ideal.

Hey florida84, You couldn't be more wrong about humans being meant to eat meat. The human colon is that of an herbivore. It turns and winds so that digestion can be slow and the colon can absorb the nutrients of the vegetables and grains humans were meant to eat. Carnivores like tigers and other animals have straight, short colons - easy in, easy out, b/c meat doesn't contain nutrients that were meant to be absorbed slowly. On the contrary, meat is harmful to the colon. Ummm, ever heard of a little thing called colon cancer. Carnivores have sharp teeth for tearing meat, humans don't. Humans weren't meant to eat meat. Cholesterol is only found in meat and dairy products - not veggies or grains. As for things like milk, no other species continues to drink milk in adulthood and they don't drink the milk of another species. You do the math. Humans have a lot to learn from the animal kingdom. Hunters just like blowing away the animal kingdom.

@ YerMomma,

I partially agree with you. Human ancestors, Australopitecine hominins, lived in trees and consumed mostly plant food. Therefore, they had a barrel-shaped rib-cage. However, the more gracile species of Australopitecines started exploring east african savana and became scavangers. they mostly ate animal brains because that was mostly what was left after large carnivores. since the brains are high in fats that enabled humans to expand their own brain since they saved a lot of energy. through time, as their brain started expanding, early homo (Homo habilis) started making tools for easier scavanging and eventual hunting. It is well-known in archaeology that humans consumed meat at least as far back as 2 million years ago. the early humans had comparatively big teeth but since the invention of fire and tools their teeth became smaller because they cracked nuts and vegetables and cooked their food which made it easier to chew. human digestive system is comparable to that of a pig (a omnivore) since humans are not pure carnivores but rather omnivores. there is not a single native culture in the world that is purelly vegetarian. the diet of those that live close to equator is about 30% meat and those closer to poles increases to up to 90% (Inuits, etc.). I do agree that milk is a recent addition to human diets, as are grains. before agriculture humans never consumed milk and grains were very minor food source. that's why many people are lactose intolerant.

The human species is like most other mammals, they consume milk from their mother until weened onto a sustainable diet. And yes, humans are hunter/gathers, just like bears. But given the choice, even a bear will eat a meat diet.

Didn't Australopithecus go extinct?

@florida84 - I always find it highly ironic that human ancestors probably didn't have the capicity to feel guilty about eating meat until the brain development that occurred after they began eating meat. Dame Nature has a sense of humor, I suppose.

@Yermomma Humans have evolved to eat meat. We only began eating grains about 10,000 years ago. Prior to that, we've been eating meat for millions of years. And what does cholesterol have to do with it? The human body requires cholesterol to manufacture gonadal hormones and to create brain cells. We certainly do have a lot to learn from the animal kingdom - they have enough sense to eat what their body requires instead of making up silly self-righteous reasons not to eat what they've evolved to eat.

Too many single Moms around because both the single mom and the father , excuse me sperm producer, decided to have sex and then go their merry way and what has a single Mom's weight got to do with anything. I have seen plenty of skinny women pop out children like they were vending them. The overproducive uterus is always accompanied by an overproductive penis.

@kountryking are you trolling bra? You are saddened, really? Then at minimum you must be a vegetarian and you must cry every time you drive by McDonalds or KFC. I am not happy to see animals killed, but when people live in the middle of the natural habitat of black bears, and the bears start killing people, will you be as sad as you are now? I am a vegetarian, I love animals, but the bear population has to be controlled. You don't seem to have any solutions, you just want to whine.

@FAWN. Humans live longer with a higher quality of life on a non-meat diet.

The United Nations released a report stating that: A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change and chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions because livestock agriculture produces more greenhouse gas emissions than every train, truck, car and airplane put together. In this report it also states that and it takes 260 million acres of U.S. cleared forest to produce a meat-centered diet: On an average, 20 vegetarians can live off the land required by one meat eater. As I told fgh-1038628, One of my congregation members put it this way. Think of the size of a cow or any large animal used for meat, now imagine how many vegetable crops you can plant in that one area where just one animal stood.

Try getting in between bear cubs and their mother sometime and let us know how that works out for you.

Why would anyone get between a sow and her cubs though? We can coexist, there's no need to obliterate all wildlife because living WITH THEM is inconvenient for us.

Putting birth control in their food? You're serious? Let me know when you're finished putting birth control into everything around, because bears eat it all.

The alternative Becky, is that they hunt us. I grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire; if all you were told was to keep your food in "bear proof" containers, they didn't like you!

JS, have you ever been in the woods? You don't know if you're between a sow and her cubs. It possible to walk right past a bear and never see it; they are not standing around a tree chatting - on four legs they are seldom taller than the undergrowth.

Do you have children? If not, then your are doing your part to ensure the human population does not expand and we have habitat for these animals. If you do, then you're a hypocrite.

You're stepping into an entirely different argument when you start talking about human population growth. There is no question that it affects wildlife habitat. My absolute favorite thing is to see a soccer mom with her save the animal sticker on her mini van while she drives her 4 kids around to practices.

Instead of passing judgement on others for their life, maybe we should look at our own. How much money/time did you donate to wildlife management last year?

How natural is birth control for animals? Put it in their food? Really? They eat meat that is freshly killed, not canned bear food. Some things require a thought process, think before typing.

Emanuelle, when I posted I thought, "How come no one else has come to this very same conclusion?", til I refreshed the page and thought, "Oh thank goodness, there's really someone else out there with a little common sense."

I try! :)

Seriously, she's probably the same person who complains about hormones in her milk etc, yet has no problem putting birth control into the wild so animals can ingest it and cease populating.

Logic is a lost art, I swear!

Annon, actually black bears are scavengers. They will eat just about anything, including carrion, especially in the spring when they wake up starving to death.

Well thank you annie! It still doesn't make much sense though, the whole bear birth control thing. I guess I scavenge too after a nice long nap, in fact I'm gonna go do just that! :D

I don't have children, I don't drive a gas guzzler, I don't drink milk, and as a matter of fact, on my measly little salary, I donated 1.5% of it to organizations that prevent cruelty to animals in this country and in other countries (primarily Asian countries.) Just because you like to kill things doesn't make me the one with a problem ... the first thing they look for in serial killers is whether they enjoyed hurting animals. There's something wrong with anyone who takes pleasure in a blood sport. Do you all go to dog fights, too? In all the time I spent in the White Mountains, I never even SAW a black bear, and I hiked all around Mt. Washington and the Appalachian Trail; they're practically extinct up there. And I'm no scientist, but I have heard of putting some type of birth control in hay to keep the deer population in check. Surely with all the research and development that goes to perfecting the sites for your rifles, your little tree houses so you can shoot animals from hiding (cowards!), the chemicals you use to use to hide your scent, SOME of that money should go to figuring out how to put birth control in food -- or something else. There has got to be a way, but you people with your high-tech equipment that gives you such an advantage over the animals you enjoy killing certainly aren't interested in anything but the blood rush you get from inflicting agony. I'll bet when there isn't an opportunity to kill in the wild, you are the type of people who would go on a canned hunt of old zoo animals so you can beat your chests and say "I killed a lion!" And as for the person who mentioned that a friend of theirs went to Zimbabwe to hunt, pray tell me which animals in Africa are extinct? NONE. So that would make your friend simply a blood-thirsty killer who doesn't care about keeping species alive for our children. After all, you want to train your children to kill as early as possible!

We can't all afford to "eat in fine restaurants" or own Mercedes'. I know families (in the backwoods of Colorado and Utah) who must hunt to feed their families. Of course, one family has 5 children and the other has 8. Is that seriously necessary? As for shopping in grocery stores -- and I assume you mean that we all purchase meat from slaughterhouses -- anyone who cares and has a brain knows how to replace meat with other types of protein. I used to drive 20 minutes to buy eggs from a family farmer who let his chickens roam free; now the neighborhood grocery store carries "cage-free" eggs from local farms. There must be a demand for them, or they wouldn't be in the grocery store. The whole problem is that there are simply too many humans and too many contractors who continue building housing developments even as the value of all our existing homes drops.

You definately make a point

But I so love the wild animals..............

especially with taters and gravy

"Taters? What's taters Precious? ...... You can keep your taters, just gives us the meats, raw and juicy and wiggling..." ........Anyone? Couldn't help it, hehehe.

Ha Ha very good - it really takes a "big" man to kill an animal with a high powered rifle, I am so impressed !

There is such a thing as bow hunting. Just an FYI.

And don't forget the black powder season

Emanuelle -- Unless you are an excellent bow-hunter and can kill the animal with one shot, that is an even more cruel way to kill. Any responsible bow-hunter who has only wounded the animal follows the blood trail and makes sure to put it out of its agony. Hunters can still hide and mask their scent, and recurve bows are very powerful, so hunting that way doesn't make the hunter any less of a coward. It simply causes the animals more pain. But then the more pain and blood, the more fun, right?

This is a horrific tragedy.

Why don't YOU leave NJ!

I live in NJ, one of the problems is overbuilding. Too many condos, townhomes and ugly McMansions blighting the landscape.

There seems to be a recurring theme throughout all the blogs here: When a species gets too large it needs to be thinned out. So far, the fact that humans WAY OUTNUMBER anything else on this planet (besides mosquitos and ants!) a lot of the blogs seem to think the 'thinning out' should begin with the humans. Can't say as I disagree. However, historically, it seems there have been natural disasters to 'thin' us out. Maybe we should turn to the Indians to handle the bear problem. They seem to have a much better handle on the way the problem should be handled. As one person said "a bunch of drunk, redneck, armed killers are not the way to go".