Wildlife officials, however, know that there are more bears statewide, and that the bear range has extended all the way down to the shore counties for the first time in a century. Last year, game wardens even had to remove a young male bear that had wandered into downtown Trenton. Hunting of bears is not allowed in New Jersey. Some 200 police officers and park rangers have taken a course on categorizing, adverse conditioning and destroying black bears. State wildlife management specialists stress that the emphasis in the training program is on controlling nuisance animals.
Bears are very smart.
A bear knows garbage night in each township in its range, and it will roam accordingly. To their credit, state wildlife officials have launched an aggressive education campaign to help people understand the do's and don'ts of living in bear country. With a few aggressive exceptions, bears so far have learned to live with humans quite well. It's the humans who need to learn to live with bears.