In 2015, 92.4% of the comments received during the Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy (seven-year policy) comment period OPPOSED the bear hunt. That's why we're calling on New Jersey to enact Bear Smart Legislation – a real comprehensive solution that:

• Implements a statewide black bear feeding ban
• Reduces complaints and incidents by requiring bear‐resistant trash containment programs for residents, businesses, parks and campgrounds
• Reduces unnatural food sources by prohibiting deer baiting in bear habitat (Why? Bears often take food from deer bait stations)
• Closes the bear hunting season by removing bears from the game code

Why now? In the past several years, we've learned definitively that bear hunts:

• Do not protect public safety
• Do not prevent incidences and complaints
• Are cruel recreational trophy hunts

Instead, we can make a real difference and improve our communities with "Bear Smart Programs." These simple, common-sense programs include three basic steps:

• Public education: How to coexist and act responsibly in bear habitat
• Garbage containment: Bear resistant trash cans keep bears away from unnatural food sources
• Attractant control: Remove outside food that attracts bears to the area

Bears are among the slowest mammals to reproduce and are self-regulating. A Bear Smart program can effectively keep the bear population in check by restricting bears access to unnatural food sources. When bears live on naturally sourced food, their population growth rate is commensurate with the food and available habitat.

That's why I introduced a package of legislation that would immediately halt the annual black bear hunt, create a new humane black-bear management program, and end the unethical practice of bear-baiting. Now, I need your help to let the Legislature know that it's long past time we passed these bills and ended the Bear Hunt for good.

What can we do?

• Contact your legislators! Ask them to co-sponsor bills S3007 and S3008
• Sign our petition below, so public officials know how many New Jerseyans oppose the bear hunt!