New Jersey’s Anti-Hunting Campaign Of Lies And Bad Information

*Hat Tip to Jim*

Anti-hunting groups in New Jersey continue to mount their obscene campaign to end hunting. They want to completely infiltrate the state government, which shouldn’t be that difficult when you consider the socialist regime that is in office now. To accomplish their ultimate goal of ridding the state, and the entire country for that matter, of hunting, these groups inundate the press with their lies, incomplete and bad information in order to brainwash the general public in order to promote their personal agendas, which involves mostly bilking you of your money.

Here are a few examples of recent press information and editorials thrust onto the readers.

On September 6, 2008, DailyRecord.com published an editorial written by Doris Lin who says she was the attorney representing the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance and the Bear Education and Resource Group that sued to stop the 2005 New Jersey bear hunt. She explains why the hunt was illegal and as such the bear hunt was canceled.

What attorney Lin didn’t bother telling readers was the rest of the story. After the bear hunt was called off, the court ruled the bear management plan was faulty and that until such time as a valid plan was presented the court, no more bear hunts would be scheduled.

The fish and game department of the Department of Environmental Protection came up with a plan that the court approved. As a result, a new bear hunt was scheduled. When Corzine was elected governor of New Jersey, he appointed his little puppet, Liza Jackson, as head of DEP. She promptly disregarded the ruling of the court and ripped up the court-approved bear management plan, declaring she had the authority and with the blessings of the governor, stopped all future bear hunts.

Since that time, the bear population continues to grow and bear/human problems have risen by nearly 90% from a year ago by some reports. These groups and individuals continue to tell the people that hunting will do nothing to stop the bear problems and that people need to learn to live with the bears.

On the same day, also at DailyRecord.com, another letter to the editor was published written by Barbara Dyer, New Jersey State Director Humane Society. Dyer’s tactic, used often by animal rights and anti-hunting groups nationwide, is that all hunters want is a “trophy” and have no interest in hunting as a tool to assist in public safety. Here’s a comment I’ve probably read a million times.

Education, not killing, is the answer. But, of course, education doesn’t give hunters a head to mount on the living room wall.

This comes from the same person who uses this kind of thinking.

A random hunt will do nothing to reduce bear “incidents” for the same reason that shooting people randomly on the street would not reduce crime

Think for a moment the image that gets created in the minds of people who read this trash. It is a blatant attempt to influence people to think that hunting is random and dangerous and is not regulated and scientifically managed.

A bear hunt, like any other hunt, whether in New Jersey or in Idaho, is not random. Most often tags are allotted in wildlife management districts in order to manipulate populations where needed. In other words, in areas where management plan population goals are exceeded, more tags get issued than in zones where fewer animals live.

But we wouldn’t want a good dose of fact to ruin such a good fictitious, emotion riddled lie to rid the state of hunting.

To further show that the statement about random bear hunts are as effective as shooting into a crowd is a well used talking point of the Humane Society of the United States, Nina Austenberg, director of the mid-Atlantic regional office of the Humane Society of the United States, writes this:

Shooting bears at random is as effective as shooting into a crowded room would be at reducing crime.

Here’s a good one from another resident of New Jersey. The finger is pointed at man as being the problem and the innocent bear is forced into having to come to your back door looking for a handout.

Fear and ignorance of black bears will continue to have them killed. Black bears are docile animals. They have no interest in harming people in any way.

The search for food is what brings these animals out. Contain your garbage properly. Talk to your town’s administration to see about obtaining a state grant to reduce the cost of a bear resistant can for you.

Just because you see bears more, due to the fragmented habitat they are forced to survive in, doesn’t mean they should be eliminated. How can dismissing lives become so “matter of fact?”

We can co exist with bears. The issue is, will we all join together to make it possible? Or are we going to sit back and let these animals get blown away with their cubs by their side.

The ignorance in such a statement is unbelievable! Is animal habitat shrinking in the country? Yes and that is the reason our wildlife needs proper management not allowing “nature” to do it for us. What the writer fails to do is deal with reality, or maybe not. Perhaps they are suggesting we begin tranquilizing humans and transporting them somewhere else.

Bears come out of the woods because they are hungry. Scientific studies have shown that bears have a preferred diet which does not include your garbage. When their preferred diet is not available, caused by more things that just a new house in the neighborhood, a hungry bear begins searching for food.

These anti-hunting groups don’t want to deal with the realization that bears can get hungry because the habitat will not support the number of bears present. This is why proper management will deal with that problem but these people offer nothing for a solution except buying bear-proof garbage cans and blaming the existence of man for all bear problems.

Take note also of the last sentence in the above quoted comment - “Or are we going to sit back and let these animals get blown away with their cubs by their side.” I know of no state that has a bear hunting season that allows hunters to shoot a sow in the company of cubs. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt by a person to deliberately lie in order to play on the emotions of people who don’t have an understanding of the laws.

If these people had viable facts to support any of their claims, they should use them. The problem is they don’t and therefore their campaign has to resort to lies and spreading emotionally charged misinformation.

On September 4, 2008, the N.J. Star Ledger, ran a letter which shows the lunacy and hypocrisy of these people. The letter attempts to deal with the issue of stopping deer hunting to reduce populations. They claim the problem isn’t that there are too many deer but that the forest soils need to be fertilized with lime. No I’m not making this up.

Acid rain has removed alkalinity and lowered the pH of forest soil. Liming is needed to improve soils and grow new trees, particularly acid-sensitive species such as sugar maple and red oak. Liming also increases the number and diversity of forest birds and wildflowers.

Liming may increase the soil’s ability to regenerate plant and tree life, but killing deer will not. Although deer are part of the forest equation, the issues involving forest ecology and regeneration are complex, with many contributing variables. Deer are constantly villainized, but forest soils are a far bigger problem than the deer. Light is also a limiting factor due to forest canopies.

Let’s get this straight. Here is an example of how it appears to be an acceptable practice to manipulate the soils in the forest with chemicals to provide more plants and also to “increase the number and diversity of forest birds and wildflowers”, yet manipulating game populations to provide for a balanced ecosystem is wrong.

These people can say whatever they want about the role man plays in this but it still will not change that fact that man lives on this earth and everything that we do has to be done recognizing that fact. Man continues to get blamed for everything with these environmentalists yet they fail to acknowledge the simple fact that us evil hunters contributed billions of dollars of the years in order that we have scientifically managed wildlife.

Tom Remington