Black Bear stop-overs in Essex County

For years, young black bears have been sighted in Essex County in May and June. The highest probability is that they are male yearlings; this year’s cubs were born in January 2024. Spring is the time in a mother bear’s lifecycle for family disbursement. Mothers chase away her cubs to force independence. While female yearlings remain within the matriarchal territory, the males venture to establish a separate territory. Females mate and give birth every second year which makes them one of the slowest reproducing mammals.

For the unknowing, seeing a free-ranged black bear can be frightening; for the educated observers, the fleeting moments are cherished. Even when actively seeking to see bears, they usually sense human presence and hide. Black bears’ defense is flight, they do not want human interaction as they are fearful and timid. If a bear unexpectedly comes upon a human the natural behaviors are: chomping jaws, pawing or pounding the ground, even charging towards a person in attempts to intimidate the person into retreat. While these behaviors can look terrifying, they assure you that this is a typical bear who will not make contact. This was probably the case last year when an unknowing fearful officer killed an “advancing” reservation bear. Just insure that the bear has an escape route as his/her defense mechanism is to flee.

Black bears are not known to be hunters, rather opportunistic feeders. They forage on fruits, vegetables, berries, nuts, varied vegetation, human garbage, carrion, virtually anything. Since bears are not domestic animals, their digestive systems do not need refined/prepared food; thus the bacteria in aged carrion and garbage has no ill effect. People provided garbage offers easy high calorie food and habituates bears into human environments. While these are labeled “nuisance bears” it is normal and typical behavior. As humans continually supple easy high quality food luring bears, aren’t they “nuisance people”? The proven myth is that hunting bears alleviates nuisance bears or aberrant bears. When a residential garbage-scavenger bear is hunted, another bear moves into the vacated territory and the nuisance complaints persist. Containing garbage is the proven strategy to keeping bears out of human environments. The recreational hunting of bears cannot eliminate an improbably aggressive bear anymore than firing into a crowd of people can apprehend a would-be criminal.

Two million residents in NJ live safely alongside black bears in mutual respect.

There are no deep woods in NJ; wildlife habitat is fragmented by roadways, commercial, manufacturing, residential and 365 municipalities of human environments.

As bear and wildlife hunting is always strategized for maximum sustainable yield, there will always be a robust shootable surplus for next year’s game seasons.

The answer is education, education, education to learn how to live in harmony with our wild neighbors.

To learn more, visit Bearstudy.org

Janet Piszar, Founder

PUBLIC TRUST Wildlife Management, est. 2011

former director of (NJ) BEAR

Millburn resident