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.

Sierra Club Opposes Leg Hold Trap Rule

The New Jersey Sierra Club, as part of a coalition, has filed an appeal in the Appellate Court for a stay on the new leghold trap rule in New Jersey because it violates state law.

Leghold traps have been banned in New Jersey for 30 years; however, starting in November, the NJ Fish and Game Council approved a rule for them to come back. These leg hold traps are cruel to the trapped animals, hazardous to other animals and pets and can harm the public including hikers and children.

“We are challenging this rule in court because it is illegal, immoral and inhumane. Leghold traps are dangerous and were banned in New Jersey 30 years ago by the legislature. Now the NJ Fish and Game Council is going to allow them to be used again. They were banned for a reason and there is no reason that they should ever be allowed to be used. These leghold traps maim and harm animals and are indiscriminate. They are dangerous to pets and to people who enjoy the outdoors and nature. Now the Governor is siding with the trapping industry and the hunting lobby as part of his national political agenda and that’s why they are bringing them back. This is unacceptable and against the law and that’s why we are fighting this,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The rules, which were likely proposed at the behest of the trapping and fur industries are inhumane and are illegal under New Jersey law especially since there are other trapping techniques available. This rule violates the law and legislative intent and that’s why we’re challenging it.”

Sierra Club Appeals to Put a Hold on Dangerous DEP leg Hold Trap Rule

Nutria

The nutria is a large rodent that looks like a beaver but with long, thin tails. They are one of the world's worst invasive species and they possibly exist in New Jersey.

They weigh 12 to 20 pounds. They are primarily nocturnal (active at night), with peak activity occurring near midnight.

Although they are native to Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, they have invaded North America, particularly in the southern U.S. They have been seen and trapped in New Jersey in places like Salem County's Lower Alloways Creek Township.

The problem with them, as with most invasive and non-native species, is that they eat vegetation that causes our native animals and fish to lose their habitats.

This large furbearing rodent (Myocastor coypus) was first introduced to the United States in 1899 in California. Between then and 1940,  ranches were established in many states to breed them. A crash in the market for their fur occurred after WWII and ranchers, unfortunately, released their nutria or did nothing to recapture those that escaped. They once existed in 30 states and still exist in about 18. Nutrias can tolerate winters in temperate areas only, but the milder NJ winters have allowed them to stay and breed and they were trapped in the salt marshes of the Delaware Bay back in the early 1980s.

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife would rather not get any reports of nutria and as far as I can find few valid reports of nutria have occurred recently by trappers via the annual trapper harvest survey.

You can report spotting a nutria (or fisher or bobcat) using the form at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/pdf/bobcat-fisher-nutria_sighting.pdf

In New Jersey, a Trapper Education course must be passed and a trapping license obtained to trap in the state - see http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/trapping_info.htm

New Jersey Furbearers

American mink

Despite the title of an online article, "The American Mink, one of N.J.’s most common semi-aquatic carnivore," I myself (and I suspect many readers) have never seen a mink in my Jersey travels. The mink (Mustela vison) is native to the state, although it is thought that escapees from mink farms have interbred with wild mink.

The mink is not threatened in the state and has a stable population. Not threatened, unless you consider that The New Jersey Hunting and Trapping Digest lists raccoon, skunk, opossum, weasel, mink, muskrat, red and gray fox, coyote, beaver, otter and nutria as species that have open seasons for trapping in the State of New Jersey. (In New Jersey, a Trapper Education course must be passed and a trapping license obtained to trap in the state - see http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/trapping_info.htm)

Several of these species were not here historically or disappeared and have only returned through re-introductions.

Native to NJ are the river otter (Lontra canadensis), long-tailed (Mustela frenata) and short-tailed ermine (Mustela ermine). Also native are the striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis), raccoon (Procyon lotor) or gray fox (Urocyon cinereorgenteus).

Coyotes, which are now being reported with more frequency in the state, were never present in New Jersey until the past fifty or so years. Their appearance is due to many factors including habitat loss in their previous area of habitation. The current theory is that overall movement (based on DNA sampling) in the last century by the western coyote to the midwest, Great Lake states and through Lower Canada led to some western coyotes mating with gray wolves. Their offspring moved further eastward through Lower Canada and down through the New England states and into the Mid-Atlantic States.

NJ had gray wolves in the state until about the mid-1850s. Today, there are no wolves in New Jersey outside of zoos and preserves. But the eastern coyote appears to be here to stay.

Some of our other furbearing creatures past and present include:

• Marten (Martes americana) historically present but extirpated since the mid-1800s
• The fisher (Martes pennanti) also extirpated but again present in Sussex and Warren counties although few in number. Probably due to re-introduction by New York and Pennsylvania in the last decade
• Beaver (Castor canadensis) had almost disappeared from here by the early 1800s. It is believed that some escapees from the Rutherford-Stuyvesant game preserve in Allamuchy, Warren County established a breeding population. Restocking enabled the beaver to re-establish itself by the mid-20th century. 
• Most common to us is the raccoon which is, was and has always been a native of New Jersey and was a species that the British explorers to this new land reported, since they did not exist in Britain.
• Opossum (Didelphis virginiana) was thought to be numerous in the central and southern part of the state in the late 1860s, but in the last hundred years the range of both opossum and raccoons has extended much further north including into Canada where they historically never existed.

opossum

Busy New Jersey Beavers

USFWS.gov photo

The beaver is the second largest rodent in the world. Even children are familiar for its wide, flat tail, trre-gnawing and for building dams.

Those tails are useful for slapping the surface of the water to warn other beavers of approaching danger. Although these critters are rather awkward on land, they can navigate quickly under water and can stay submerged if necessary for up to 20 minutes.

Trees (bark and leaves) are their favorite winter food, but in summer other vegetation, especially aquatic plants like water lilies, make up their diet.

Beavers are known for their engineering of dams on rivers and streams. Their intent is to build their lodges (homes) in their preferred pond setting. They ingeniously place vertical poles, and then fill in the spaces between the poles with horizontally placed branches. Then, they further fill in the gaps with a combination of weeds and mud to hold back the water around their lodge. They have even been known to create "canals" in order to float larger tree materials they need rather than dragging them over land.

Their powerful front teeth are cartoonish but they are effective for cutting trees and plants for building and for food.

Though beavers are found throughout New Jersey, it is likely that many residents have never actually encountered one in the wild. Children and adults might mistake a groundhog for a beaver.

NJ's beaver population is strong because they generally coexist well with humans and they have few natural predators. 

Not all cases of beaver building have been met with amazement by humans. There have been reports over the years of busy beavers encroaching on human activities.  In Camden County, beavers on Kirkwood Lake created dams that made the water rise so that homes that normally had about 100 feet of land between them and the lake wound up with only a few feet of land.

In Middlesex County, a beaver blocked a culvert on a road in the Jamesburg Park Conservation Area and built a dam between two cranberry bogs. The town wanted to avoid flooding that had occurred in previous years. In that case, the town got a permit to trap the beaver out of season. They snared a 31.5-pound, 40-inch-long female beaver in an underwater trap.

This past year, in Princeton Township, human intervention with beavers also made the news.
A pair of busy beavers killed by a local animal control officer activated animal lovers who wondered why the beavers were not relocated rather than killed.

The beaver pair were contributing to flooding at the Pettoranello Gardens section of Community Park North, which has a pond and several streams. Workers tried to dismantle the dams, but the beavers got busy and rebuilt.

It didn't help that the state Division of Fish and Wildlife said the Princeton animal control department had not gotten the proper permit prior to killing the beavers. It seems odd but, according to a spokesman for the department, beavers trapped either in conibear traps, which kill them, or in live traps, still must be euthanized and may not be relocated.

As said earlier, our state beaver population is healthy. The state regularly surveys the 30 hunting and trapping zones in the state. Permits obtained from the Division of Fish and Wildlife are required to trap beaver and/or otter.

During the 2009-2010 season, more than 600 beavers were trapped and killed. The beaver season runs from the end of December to early February. (The duration of the trapping season for beaver on 23 Wildlife Management Areas is January 1 through February 9, 2012, but if the anticipated harvest of beaver and/or otter has not been accomplished during this season, up to 14 additional days may be authorized by the Director.)


More on "Beavers as Master Builders of Wildlife Habitats"

North American beaver (Castor canadensis)