today marks the start of black bear hunting season in New Jersey it's the first iteration of the controversial hunt after the practice was extended another five years by state Regulators Governor Murphy campaigned on ending it entirely and took steps to limit the practice but the administration changed course last year after agreeing with environmental officials about a surge in the reported bear population and the need for the hunt as part of the black bear management plan opponents though point to data showing bear activity is down this year and argue that non-lethal measures could be taken to allow people and bears to coexist senior correspondent Joanna gagas reports today is the opening day of our October bear season so the first day of the hunt the bear hunt that was stopped by Governor Murphy in 2020 is back in full this year there was a partial hunt last year but new rules just adopted by New Jersey's Fish and Game Council have fully restored the hunt for the next 5 years it kicks off today through Saturday and could have another round in December on both private and state lands the bear hunt is part of our comprehensive black bear management policy which is an integrated approach to managing black bears in New Jersey it's a contentious issue in New Jersey with conservationists insisting that non-lethal means of controlling the bear population are effective and more Humane it's purely a trophy hunt and there's no reason for it trophy hunts do nothing to manage Bears reduce complaints or incidents we have dozens of ways of practical ways of uh reducing bare complaints reducing their population and key is keeping them away from human food by removing food sources you remove their ability to reproduce says metler but David golden refutes that and he now has the support of Governor Murphy who once promis to end the hunt for good what we've found over time where there's been um uh extensive work on trying to reduce human derive food sources in New Jersey we find that that is not an effective way to manage the bear population the hunt will end as soon as it reaches 30% of the total estimated number of bears in the state if they don't reach 20% by the end of the December hunt they'll extend it but how they get to those total estimates is where this gets a little complicated no tags no tattoos when we've had full hunts we are able to estimate the population so the way we estimate population is through a technique called Mark recapture so our biologists Mark a number of bears ahead of the bear season and then when bears come into our check stations we calculate the number of tagged bears that were marked earlier against untagged or unmarked bears and that allows us to generate a population estimate in 2022 the bear hunt agent agency the division of Fish and Wildlife claimed that there was 3500 to 4,000 bears in New Jersey well their own data shows that that was less than half the fishing game council is cooking the numbers they say there's 4,000 Bears when last year's hun proved there only 2,000 Bears the D says last year's incomplete hunt contributed to an inability to get an accurate bear count but former state senator Ray lesnak filed a lawsuit through his advocacy organization The lesnak Institute for American leadership challenging the composition of the fish and game Council six out of the 11 members of the fish and game Council are appointed on recommendation by the Sportsman's Club Sportsman Club is in favor of hunting that's why they exist basically and um article three and article four of the New Jersey Constitution says public policy is made by the Judiciary the legislature and the executive branch of government it doesn't include the Sportsman's Club which is a private organization which is a private organization of Sportsmen basically Hunters lesnak just lost his challenge in Superior Court but he's appealing before the same judge he believes anyone appointed to the council should have a background in conservation and Wildlife preservation in Newton I'm Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight News NJ Spotlight News