A fatal black bear attack on a hiker in New Jersey last week is striking a chord in Maine, where Question 1 on November’s ballot asks voters to decide whether to ban three forms of bear hunting practices — baiting, dogs and trapping.
Darsh Patel, 22, of Edison, New Jersey, and four friends encountered the black bear on Sunday afternoon in the Apshawa Preserve, about 40 miles northwest of New York City, according to Reuters. The bear began to follow the hikers and they scattered. When they regrouped, Patel was missing, so they called the police. The young man’s body was found two hours later.
New Jersey’s management of its black bear population often has been compared to Maine during debate over Question 1, as the Garden State — which once banned bear hunting — was forced to reinstitute the bear hunt, including the use of bear bait, in 2010 amid rising complaints of nuisance bears.
Opponents of Question 1, who want to preserve bear hunting, point to New Jersey’s decision as evidence that Maine’s bear hunting practices should remain.
“This is truly a tragic event,” said Judy Camuso, wildlife division director of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, which opposes Question 1, about the New Jersey attack. “As biologists, we work hard to reduce conflicts. We realize that this is always a possibility, but this is every wildlife manager’s worst nightmare.”
“Even though dangerous encounters [with bears] are very rare, we want policies to minimize the very low risk of a run-in,” said Katie Hansberry, campaign director of Mainers for Fair Bear Hunting, the leading group in support of the upcoming referendum. “Like Maine, New Jersey allows baiting, and the dumping of junk food into the woods conditions bears to human foods and smells and makes encounters more likely.”
The site of the recent bear attack, Apshawa Preserve, is a 576-acre nature preserve in the heart of the Highlands of northern New Jersey and features more than 5 miles of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Sandwiched between several housing developments, the preserve is operated by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, which permits only deer hunting on its properties. Bear hunting is prohibited at the preserve.
No one had been killed by a black bear in New Jersey since 1852, according to Reuters.
“It’s something that nobody ever wants to have to deal with but something we always think about,” Camuso said. “We would be irresponsible if we didn’t think about it. We strive to minimize bears interacting with people.”
Maine hasn’t had a documented case of a fatal bear attack, according to state bear biologist Randy Cross, but a few people have been injured by Maine bears over the years.
In September 2010, a man was hunting bear with hounds in northern Penobscot County when a 365-pound male black bear attacked him. The hunter was released from the hospital with a couple dozen stitches in his right leg, arm and torso, according to a BDN story about the incident.
Before that, three people in a period of 30 years reported being injured by bears in Maine, according to the DIF&W spokeswoman in the story. However, according to BDN records, the number is higher. At least six people were injured by bears in Maine between 1986 and 2010, according to a BDN story by John Holyoke.
Maine receives an average of 500 bear complaints annually, with a record high of 870 complaints in 2012. But most of these complaints are seemingly minor — for example, bears tearing down bird feeders and rummaging through trash cans.
Complaints historically have been more severe and numerous in New Jersey than in Maine, which could be attributed to New Jersey’s much higher human population density — about 1,000 people per square mile compared with Maine’s 40 people per square mile.
By comparison, New Jersey has a bear density of about one bear for 3 square miles. Maine, on the other hand, has the largest black bear population in the eastern U.S. — an estimated 30,000 black bears — and a bear density of about one bear per square mile.
According to the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife’s summary of bear complaints from 2006 to 2010, the department received 1,303 bear complaints in 2006, and 11 of those complaints were of bears attempting to enter homes. In 2010, the number of bear complaints had risen to 3,035, with 43 bears attempting to enter homes.
“Fortunately, that’s very uncommon here in Maine,” said Camuso. “We don’t categorize [complaints] the same way as New Jersey does because we don’t have that level of complaints here. Our complaints have been much less severe.”
New Jersey holds a six-day bear hunt in December, but that wasn’t always the case.
In an effort to revive the black bear population in 1970, New Jersey placed a ban on bear hunting that lasted more than 30 years.
In that time, the state’s bear population increased steadily, according to New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, and bear-related complaints climbed with it.
New Jersey’s bear hunt was reinstituted in 2010, and since then, bear complaints have steadily declined. Bear baiting is allowed in New Jersey, as long as hunters do not use any type of constructed blind. Baiting isn’t allowed there in national wildlife refuges and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.
“I like to remind people that different states use different tools to manage bears because they’re in different circumstances,” Camuso said. “Here in Maine, we have a long season because we have a lot of bears, and it’s very hard to harvest bears in Maine, even with the three tools we have. Different states have different terrain and populations, and they use different tools that work for them.”
Maine’s bear hunting season is underway, though the period of time people can hunt with bait ended on Sept. 20. People can hunt bear with dogs and traps in Maine through Oct. 31. And hunting bear without the use of bait, dogs or traps is permitted through Nov. 29.
DIF&W biologists and game wardens fear if the referendum passes, the bear population will increase unchecked and bears will be forced to move into new areas of Maine, which in turn will lead to more bear-human conflicts.
Proponents of the referendum, however, say bear bait, as a supplemental food source, is contributing to the growing bear population. They also believe that bait increases the likelihood of bear-human conflicts.