I asked Bob if his organization or news agencies try to keep bear incidents quiet or not report them. He said quite the opposite, that his organization wanted this brought to the attention of taxpayers, who will have to come to some agreement on the bear population explosion in our densely populated state. Bear trapping and elimination is only one area of Bob's responsibilities and it's urgent nature prevents him and his unit from doing other important work. Because the wild bear population is useful to our state's biodiversity and is an important part of our eco-system, New Jersey should protect its bear population, but we'll have to deal with controlling it humanely. Now, we have just too many and if we don't do something about it, the population can increase to double its size in 5 years.
Bears are good for the natural habitat of our state.
They eat insects, bees, wasps and termites, and they also scavenge and eat dead carcasses of wildlife to prevent disease spreading. Their population will increase and problems with their proximity to people will continue and probably get worse. We need to address this and learn more about controlling their population. I asked Bob before he left if he could tell me how people could find out more, about the black bear, and he told me he knows of an excellent videotape produced by the Pennsylvania Game Commission with great information and visuals on black bears. There is a charge for the tape.