BY ANN GENADER
WEST MILFORD — A Black Bear, estimated by environmentalist Steve Sangle to weigh about 400 pounds, strolled through Sangle’s back yard in the Pinecliff Lake community this month.
Reports about bear sightings in more populated Bergen County suburban areas were also covered by the media in recent days.
A black bear, estimated to weigh about 200 pounds, climbed a tree in the backyard of a Paramus home and another visited Ridgewood. Both left the scenes without incident.
A bear in Rockaway made news last week. He smashed the window of a car to get to two dozen cupcakes inside the vehicle.
The same bear was in trouble for breaking through a door to get garbage in a basement and breaking down a fence as he made his getaway.
The bear population has greatly increased throughout the state in the last 35 years. People who grew up in West Milford, like former Councilman Pete Gillen, all say that bears were never visible or a problem in the township when they were growing up 70 or so years ago.
That was when West Milford’s permanent population numbered a couple thousand people. Year-round home development communities were not part of the local scene until the 1920s and 30s, when the township population increasing by a few thousand in summer.
Second home vacation communities at Shady Lake, Gordon Lake, Lindy’s Lake, Pinecliff Lake, Awosting and Greenwood Lake were opened for the summer and closed in the fall. In years to come, new year-round homes were built and former vacation homes were converted for all-season use.
Before European settlers came to the area, the bears lived in forested regions of the state and roamed freely throughout the area that would become the Township of West Milford.
Settlers cleared forests for their towns and farmed and cut down trees for lumber. They killed bears to protect their crops and livestock, causing the black bear population to sharply decline.
In 1953, the New Jersey Fish and Game Council classified the black bear as a game animal, protecting it from indiscriminate killing. There was limited hunting allowed until 1971, when the game council based on assessment by biologists closed the hunting season.
The state reported that since the 1980s the black bear population has been increasing and expanding southward and eastward from the North Jersey forested areas with bears currently thriving in the nation’s most densely populated state.
It was 35 years ago that Fred A. Carlson who was acting chief of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Wildlife Management, sent a letter to mayors of New Jersey municipalities explaining the division policy concerning these animals.
Carlson began his 1984 letter by saying the entire state’s native black bear population at the time numbered only between 100 and 120 animals.
“Generally, these animals are restricted to the more rural northern portions of the state, but occasionally they do wander southward into more suburban areas,” wrote Carlson then. “Each year we receive approximately 180 calls from both rural and suburban areas reporting the presence of black bears."
Many of these callers believe that the mere presence of a black bear represents a danger to public health and welfare and overreact to the situation. No person has even been injured in New Jersey by a wild, free-ranging black bear, Carlson wrote.
(That statistic would change in September 2014, when a black bear fatally attacked a 22-year old man at the Apshawa Preserve in West Milford.)
What Carlson said on 1984, still basically remains the same today.
“If a bear is sighted, it should not be harassed or pursued and no attempt should be made to kill or capture it,” wrote Carlson. “It is in these instances that a potential danger to the public could be created. Under state law, it is illegal to possess, take, kill or attempt to take or kill any black bear in this state at any time. It is a fact.
"However, that some bears do get into situations where removal becomes necessary. In these instances the Bureau has personnel and equipment available to carry out this activity efficiently and effectively.”
Today, the New Jersey protection bureau puts bears in a category of 1 to 3, with the bear in category 3 considered not to be a threat. Category 2 means that a nonthreatening problem may be coming, but is not a threat.
A bear that breaks into a home or does notable property damage is put into category 1. Under the state bureau rules, category 1 bears are euthanized.
Since 2001, according to the state's website, the New Jersey has spent more than $9 million on black bear management.
The policy allowed for annual hunting seasons to be evaluated after the 2014 season.
It was reported in 2016 that 3,000 bears were killed in the area west of Route 287 and north of Route 78 after New Jersey resumed bear hunting season in 2010.
December 2017 marked the last of the black bear hunts that were allowed by Republican Governor Chris Christie. Current Democratic Governor Phil Murphy stuck to his campaign promise and has instituted a moratorium on bear hunting in the state that is now in effect.
For information about bear concerns, call the 24 hour NJDEP hotline at 877-927-6337.