Whether bear hunt should be permitted in New Jersey - Research Paper Example

Whether bear hunt should be permitted in New Jersey New Jersey wildlife officials estimate about 200 bears are killed on Mondays of the first day of the state’s black bear hunt. Though the aim of this is to reduce bear-human encounters I totally disagree and tend to think they can come up with other better means. In New Jersey bear hunt Participants are required to have a Black Bear Hunting Area Permit for All-around hunting license. There are bear hunting areas open to hunting in New Jersey and these gives hunters’ restrictions to hunt in the areas for which they possess a permit. Every Hunter is limited to one black bear per hunter for the season (Trenton, 2002) Their main reasons as to why this activity should be stopped at these time and generation are many. They include; the number of black bears being too high. Though disastrous the wildlife organization should at least come up with ways such as rendering the female bears infertile to control birth. Overtime this practice will reduce the number of bears. Another activity is that of sporting where hunters are allowed into the woods to bag bears in trying to reduce their numbers and awarding them with trophies. "Sport" hunting is a violent form of recreation that has left countless animals maimed and orphaned animals vulnerable to exposure, predation, and starvation. This action disrupts natural animal population dynamics and contributes to extinction of animal species. This is not only dangerous but some might lose their lives in trying to kill black bears and attain a trophy’s but lethal methods never work in the long run and often backfire. These animals suffer prolonged painful deaths when they are injured by hunters. < http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/12/nj.html> The hunters are driven by thirst for blood and the profit garnered as federal and state agencies implement programs such as wildlife management that is designed to boost the numbers of black bear species. These programs help ensure that there are plenty of animals to be killed by hunters and consequently plenty of revenue from the sale of hunting licenses. My take on this is that such programs by the government should be replaced with those of creating better facilities to cater for these bears (Krauss, 2005) With the implementation of the zoos, nature should be allowed to take its course through delicate balance of ecosystems which ensures their own survival if they are uninterrupted. Nature helps maintain this balance by killing the sickest and weakest individuals. Unusual natural occurrences cause overpopulation as natural processes work towards stabilizing the group. Starvation and disease are tragic, but they are nature's ways of ensuring that strong, healthy animals overcome and healthy, strong animals survive and uphold strength level of the rest of their herd or group. Shooting an animal because it might starve or become sick is arbitrary and also destructive thus ought to be stopped. This activity is disturbing to both the citizens and the bears themselves. On noticing they are being trailed, the bears can choose to be vicious Hunting accidents destroy property and can injure, cows, dogs, cats, hikers, and other hunters as well. Secondly the bears might choose to get into the residential attacking innocent people who are unaware resulting to havoc and deaths, destruction of property insecurity and tension. A way to keep black bear populations in balance in New Jersey would be to ensure that free-roaming, healthy wildlife are never artificially fed by the wild or tamed and these should be applicable to other wild animals. Animals that are artificially fed lose their fear of humans and begin to approach residents as well as hunters. Feeding also causes animals to breed at an accelerated rate, resulting in more animals. The more animals you have in small areas, the more the likely hood they will be perceived as overpopulated or as a nuisance, especially when they start to eat fish, damage gardens, or defecate on sidewalks and many people will quickly resort to killing unwanted animals using poisons, trappers, and other inhumane methods in an attempt to get rid of them. Hunting organizations ought to protest organized hunts encouraging citizens to report poachers in national parks to the National Parks Conservation association as well as educating the mass about the cruelty associated with hunting (Iorio, 2005) There are certain facts regarding these bears and that’s a good reason as to why they get into residential and into their gardens. The bears are not concerned with peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers but some certain crops grown which they find irresistible. These are corn, butternut, pumpkins , zucchini, melons and berries of any kind. Once they find a source for these they will not give up until they have consumed all they can hold and on getting these a single sitting by a hungry bear, renders the garden empty. This can be fought by the gardener electrifying the fence around his produce or simply not growing these crops that bears like. Apart from crops they also have their animal diet that consists of insects such as bees, ants and their larvae. Black bears are used to eating honey, and will gnaw through trees just to get to the hives if they are too deeply set into the trunks. Once the hive is breached, they will scrape the honeycombs together with their paws and eat honey regardless of being stung from the bees Another way would be to rehabilitate these bears into zoos in trying to prevent them for future generations to see and existence because such an activity will outnumber them. The zoo will work to the advantages of all as their birthing will be controlled and the production of fish in the rivers and seas will increase among many more. This also allows for the citizens to visit these zoos and view the bears as these would bring tourism back into light. New Jersey should encourage projects being undertaken by certain people and organizations such as New Jersey Division of wildlife and fish, Bear Trust International and Utah State University who aim at analyzing a long-term data set for a couple of years that includes both capture-recapture and movement/location data that is using GPS locations  for black bears in New Jersey.  Using the capture-recapture data, they will provide information on how population demographics have changed over time< http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/bearfacts.htm>. To conclude on this, all this ideologies and knowledge put in place and practiced, I don’t see the need for killing bears for they will no longer be a threat to the community, gardens and their produce, and the two can co-exist without confrontations and war. Work Cited Trenton, N.J,; New Jersey Be a good neighbor: black bears live in this area of New Jersey. Dept.Of Environmental Protection, Division of Fish and Wildlife, 2002.print. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/12/nj_bear_population_needs_furth_1.html http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/bearfacts.htm Iorio, Nicole. Bears!. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. Print. Krauss, Ruth, and Maurice Sendak. Bears. New York: HarperCollins, 20051948. Print. Read More