2010 New Jersey Bear Hunt. Whittingham Weigh Station. The Bears Get Massacred. Gov. Chris Christie. DEP Bob Martin.
Monday, the 6th, marked the first day of a scheduled 6-day "bear hunt," and I joined a handful of protesters at the Whittingham Wildlife Management Area in Newton, New Jersey. It is located along Route 206, just north of Andover. The Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) manages this controlled area, and this is where they located one of their four weigh stations. Hunters are supposed to haul their kills to these stations for weighing and tagging.
Handful? Well, yeah. The DFW limited the number of protesters to 25, citing safety and crowd control. The state police and DFW rangers were in attendance to enforce this rule. But there is another, rather convenient, reason for the DFW to limit protesters. The DFW is accused of cooking the books concerning the number of bear sightings in residential areas, and a certain Professor Dr. Edward Tavss of Rutgers University proved, through an extensive study of the records, that serious anomalies, such as doubling the number of human-bear encounters, exist in the DFW's records. Because of this and the general public's disgust with the hunt, the DFW correctly concluded that scores of protesters would show up if permitted. Last Monday, there were twenty-five of us, and only five, at a time, could approach the weigh area with our cameras.
Below are three of my still photographs. The photo of the murdered mother and cub was taken by Theo Braakman. In one photo, notice the two bear cubs, how small they are, and notice the dead deer on which these two cubs were dumped on. Heck, even the deer were shot dead! So much for a hunt to control the bears. In reality, this hunt constitutes a blood bath in the New Jersey woods that has nothing to do with conservation. One photo shows a mature bear spread eagle on a trailer. You can see the green hunter's tag on it, as if in death this bear now rightfully belonged to the hunter. This hunt is all so ignorant and barbaric. I am ashamed to be on the same human race as Gov. Christie and DEP Commissioner Bob Martin.
Handful? Well, yeah. The DFW limited the number of protesters to 25, citing safety and crowd control. The state police and DFW rangers were in attendance to enforce this rule. But there is another, rather convenient, reason for the DFW to limit protesters. The DFW is accused of cooking the books concerning the number of bear sightings in residential areas, and a certain Professor Dr. Edward Tavss of Rutgers University proved, through an extensive study of the records, that serious anomalies, such as doubling the number of human-bear encounters, exist in the DFW's records. Because of this and the general public's disgust with the hunt, the DFW correctly concluded that scores of protesters would show up if permitted. Last Monday, there were twenty-five of us, and only five, at a time, could approach the weigh area with our cameras.
Below are three of my still photographs. The photo of the murdered mother and cub was taken by Theo Braakman. In one photo, notice the two bear cubs, how small they are, and notice the dead deer on which these two cubs were dumped on. Heck, even the deer were shot dead! So much for a hunt to control the bears. In reality, this hunt constitutes a blood bath in the New Jersey woods that has nothing to do with conservation. One photo shows a mature bear spread eagle on a trailer. You can see the green hunter's tag on it, as if in death this bear now rightfully belonged to the hunter. This hunt is all so ignorant and barbaric. I am ashamed to be on the same human race as Gov. Christie and DEP Commissioner Bob Martin.
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