{Copy of letter I mailed to NJ Herald}
Dear Sir,
I live in Sussex County in the small town of Stillwater. It has come to my attention that the Bear Hunt is again in question. Unfortunately for the people of this town, bears are overwhelming us. They are magnificent animals and without a doubt a large contributer to why people visit Sussex County. However, in the last two years, the encounters between human and bruin have risen disproportionatly to what we had seen the year of the last hunt. Why? Because they are not afrid of humans and are starving due to the overpopulation. They have lost massive amounts of habitat due to development in these rural areas and they just do not have adequate food sources. It will not be long before they really begin attacking farm animals or house pets who unfortunately cross their path. A miniture horse as well as a full-grown (about 15.2 hands-62 inches to the shoulder) horse was severly injured by a bear and had to be put to sleep. I have a farm, I have horses, barn cats, chickens, and a dog...I am concerned for them. I am also concerned for the school-age kids who may have to walk a few blocks to their bus stop like I did when I was still in school. One of them will have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in their backpack and if a bear shows up, the kid is not going to think about throwing the sandwich at it, the kid will run. And any sensible person will know what will happen from there, you are talking about a predator, it will give chase. The bears need to be controlled, or I fear there will be serious consequences. I reported numerous bear sightings in the past year and nothing was done about them, how long can we go on living like this? How long are we just going to sit back and let the bears starve to death or make meals out of domestic animals or worse? Something needs to be done, a permanent solution needs to be found, we need to eliminate some of these animals in order to ensure our safety and theirs.
Dear Sir,
I live in Sussex County in the small town of Stillwater. It has come to my attention that the Bear Hunt is again in question. Unfortunately for the people of this town, bears are overwhelming us. They are magnificent animals and without a doubt a large contributer to why people visit Sussex County. However, in the last two years, the encounters between human and bruin have risen disproportionatly to what we had seen the year of the last hunt. Why? Because they are not afrid of humans and are starving due to the overpopulation. They have lost massive amounts of habitat due to development in these rural areas and they just do not have adequate food sources. It will not be long before they really begin attacking farm animals or house pets who unfortunately cross their path. A miniture horse as well as a full-grown (about 15.2 hands-62 inches to the shoulder) horse was severly injured by a bear and had to be put to sleep. I have a farm, I have horses, barn cats, chickens, and a dog...I am concerned for them. I am also concerned for the school-age kids who may have to walk a few blocks to their bus stop like I did when I was still in school. One of them will have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in their backpack and if a bear shows up, the kid is not going to think about throwing the sandwich at it, the kid will run. And any sensible person will know what will happen from there, you are talking about a predator, it will give chase. The bears need to be controlled, or I fear there will be serious consequences. I reported numerous bear sightings in the past year and nothing was done about them, how long can we go on living like this? How long are we just going to sit back and let the bears starve to death or make meals out of domestic animals or worse? Something needs to be done, a permanent solution needs to be found, we need to eliminate some of these animals in order to ensure our safety and theirs.
