BEAR Group Joined by Friends of Animals and New Jersey Lawyers Group, Pressing NJ Governor to Halt Bear Kill in 2010
For Immediate Release: 9 Nov. 2010
Contact:
Lee Hall, Vice President - Legal Affairs, Friends of Animals: Email
Marie Ansari, Secretary, Lawyers in Defense of Animals: Email
MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY — The international advocacy group Friends of Animals and New Jersey group Lawyers in Defense of Animals announced support for the position of the Bear Education and Resource Group (BEAR Group), stating that Governor Chris Christie and Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin have it all wrong on bears.
“If bears might live and thrive in New Jersey, we as state residents are highly fortunate people,” said Marie Ansari, secretary of Lawyers in Defense of Animals (LIDA).
“We’re the most densely populated state, human-wise. Co-existence with bears, a community in recovery, is a feat to be proud of.”
Said Lee Hall of Friends of Animals (FoA), “Bears have now been encountered in all 21 New Jersey counties. Their population is up from a weak three-figure number to a more viable four-figure number.”
Hall added, “This is excellent news for the eastern US biocommunity, and a testament to co-existence education undertaken by the BEAR Group and officials. New Jersey should be capable of seeing the glass as half full.”
LIDA and FoA oppose the killing of bears, and lauded the well-attended protest in Paramus on Saturday. The Record (published by the North Jersey Media Group) observed 100 people protesting New Jersey’s proposed killing plans (scheduled to take place Dec. 6-11) outside Borough Hall despite a bitter wind.
Doris Lin, Vice President of Legal Affairs for the BEAR Group, stated: “We welcome support from New Jersey’s Lawyers in Defense of Animals in this vital project to have bears understood and respected. We thank Friends of Animals, long-time champions of free-living animals’ interests, for educating their international membership about the bears who grace New Jersey, and our efforts to ensure a lasting, enlightened policy.”
“The governor has got this completely backwards,” said Friends of Animals board member Sally Malanga. “One has to wonder whether Gov. Chris Christie is intentionally ignoring the facts in order to provide a trophy hunt for certain supporters.”
Analysis by Edward A. Tavss, PhD shows New Jersey Fish and Game Council altered the method it had used since 1995 to tally bear incidents reported to the Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Fish and Wildlife.
Beginning in 2007, the Council inexplicably changed its method and began adding duplicate complaints being made to the police. Dr. Tavss’s report shows that, if the single, original method is used to count complaints from 1995 to 2009, bear encounters have gone down.
Moreover, the study includes several incidents which were recorded by the Department of Environmental Protection Communication Center as simple bear sightings or “nuisances”— counted by Fish and Wildlife as serious threats.
Malanga called for an investigation to determine whether this skewing of the incident complaints was done intentionally.
“Rather than teaching our society to kill other living beings, we should be following the proven path of public awareness. Then we win, and our native animals win,” said Malanga, a resident of northern New Jersey.
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Friends of Animals, a 501©(3) not-for-profit corporation founded in 1957, advocates for the right of animals to live free, on their own terms. More here: www.friendsofanimals.org
Lawyers In Defense Of Animals, Inc. (LIDA) is a 501©(3) not-for-profit corporation which has been working on behalf of animals in New Jersey since 1989. More here: www.njlida.org
More about the BEAR Group and its initiative to stop the kill: http://www.savenjbears.com/home.html
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13 Comments
On November 9, 2010, peg kucek wrote:
Please halt the bear kill!!!!!
On November 9, 2010, Lisa wrote:
Please we need to stop the Bear hunt! It has gotten to the point if something doesn’t suit the public then let’s just get rid of it! Not the way we should handle these issues! EDUCATION is needed on all levels.
On November 9, 2010, Hilda Estrada wrote:
Gov. Christie needs to get the facts straight and work and educate himself with help from Friends of Animals and the Bear Group. Killing of Bears must Stop. We must All co-exist with all living creatures. Where are they to live especially with so much development/destruction of their habitat??
Allowing “Trophy Hunting” for Friends and certain Supporters is morally wrong. No Animal should be Hunted Down for any reason whatsoever.
On November 9, 2010, Betty Jean Herner wrote:
I ask you to leave the bears alone.
Can’t you please give me peace and leave them alone?
On November 9, 2010, Martha Milne wrote:
This bear hunt is so wrong and wrong-headed. New Jersey should be protecting its precious wildlife. We love to vacation in New Jersey and visit friends and relatives there regularly, but will be greatly disappointed and disheartened if this cruel hunt is allowed to proceed. Please stop this inhumane action which is so detrimental to the natural balance in New Jersey!
On November 9, 2010, Marcie J. Newman- Perskin wrote:
Dear Governor Christie The Bear is a horribly misunderstood animal ,I know Ive come in contact with two in the wild and helped raise two orphaned pups hunters murdered. The bear is alot like a dog and has similar characteristics to humans.They are family oriented, care and love each other and will avoid humans almost all the time. As I have always said in my many years of helping animals STERILIZATION not ERADICATION. This is a viable option Please save these Beautiful Creatures. Sincerely, Marcie J. Newman -Perskin
On November 9, 2010, Lee Hall, Friends of Animals wrote:
Please note that the position of Friends of Animals is to oppose the killing of bears. We do not endorse the sterilization of bears. Let’s let them be, respect their interactions, and celebrate their presence, instead of trying to prevent them from existing.
On November 10, 2010, Susan Somerville-Franz wrote:
It is a crime of intelligence to have an agenda to kill Bears, which it sounds as though that could be what the Governor is looking to — be rid of them and allow trophies to be made for those hunters who like to kill animals. It’s time all governments took a stand to help our fellow creatures instead of just human animals. New Jersey is a great place to start.
On November 10, 2010, M. Moses wrote:
ARM ALL BEARS!!!! THEY WERE HERE FIRST!!!!
On November 25, 2010, Dr. Robert Nixon wrote:
It seems to be an earmark of our society to bend over backwards to satisfy the demands of the smallest minority.
In this case, the world is against killing bears; it makes no environmental or ecological sense — yet a few, ego-sick psychologically disturbed, are allowed to control government to the extent government tells the rest of us to go to hell in favor of abnormal people who have a need to klll. Kill baby kill — yeah.
On December 7, 2010, vanessa palma wrote:
This is a appalling to me, bears are beautiful creatures…how anyone has the heart to kill a bear is just beyond me.
“The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.”
quote from Albert Einstein.
Thanks for reading
Vanessa Palma
vanessrose[AT]yahoo.com
On December 7, 2010, vanessa palma wrote:
Its so sad to me that people get a high out of this, that its a fun sport.
Its sickening to me. My heart aches for all those bears!
On December 6, 2011, Gail Biddle wrote:
Another slaughter of wildlife. On one hand the state says the population is in check and on the other hand they state differently.Get the facts right, being that the only answer our state has concerning wildlife and its population is to eradicate it. This is very upsetting to me as I am an animal lover and advocate. We can all live in harmony, but it’s all about the money and nothing more. Sterilization could be implemented but the hunters won’t hear of it. Politics, not concern for what is right takes the forefront. Albert Schweitzer wrote: Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight. Tell me what happens to the cubs when “MOM” is taken from them. Call the Governor and let your voices be HEARD. Things have to change NOW.
Gail