State Lands Closed to Bear Hunting

The 2018-19 Hunting and Trapping Digest is now available at license agents and online. A notation about the Executive Order No. 34 closing state lands (parks, forests, WMAs) to bear hunting has been added to the online PDF version of the Digest but does not appear in the print version.

Bear permits for non-state lands, along with deer and fall turkey permits, go on sale at license agents and online on Monday, September 10 at 10am.

The question of how the most densely populated state in the country should manage a growing bear population has bedeviled a number of New Jersey governors.  This month,
On Monday, Gov. Philip Murphy took on the issue by signing an executive order effectively ending the state’s planned 2018 bear hunt on all state-owned lands.

Murphy had made a campaign pledge to environmental activists to ban the hunts. But now, the environmental activists and the hunters are both less than satisfied.

Environmentalists say that stopping the hunt on state lands does not stop the hunt, but only changes where the bears get killed. Hunting will continue on other public lands, including county parks, water company lands and private lands.

Hunters point to the many studies and practices in other states that maintain that hunting is the most effective means of wildlife management of bears, deer and other species that are not threatened or endangered.