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Published by the Gannett State
Bureau 11/19/04
from the Asbury Park Press Published on November 19, 2004
By TOM BALDWIN and JONATHAN TAMARI
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
(from Jersey Coast Anglers Association December 2004 Newsletter)
TRENTON -- The state environmental commissioner is risking the loss of almost $2 million in federal aid by trying to ban bear hunters from state lands, a new letter from the U.S. Department of the Interior asserts.
But Thursday, after being briefed on the contents of the letter, acting Gov. Richard J. Codey said he would not risk losing the federal money.
Codey stopped short of ordering Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell to drop his opposition to the hunt and Campbell said he would not risk losing the federal dollars.
"We will make sure under all circumstances we don't do anything that will imperil federal funding," Campbell said, adding that the DEP is seeking clarification on the letter.
The Nov. 10 letter was addressed to Martin J. McHugh, director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife in the DEP, from John E. McDonald, the acting chief in the federal assistance division of the Interior Department.
The missive essentially says that by sealing off state lands during a December bear hunt, New Jersey would compromise any effort to manage the bear population, which is what the federal money is for.
"We are prepared to recommend to the director of the service that the (New Jersey) Division (of Fish and Wildlife) be declared ineligible," McDonald's letter said.
It pointed out that the 2005 federal stipend would be driven by the 2004 aid that amounted to $1.97 million.
Campbell said stopping the bear hunt would not be a diversion of the federal aid and noted that no one at the Interior Department contacted the DEP for fact-finding before issuing the letter.
"We think, actually, the Department of the Interior is mistaken in terms of the underlying facts," Campbell said.
Campbell said the DEP would consider litigation, if necessary, but would ultimately do what needed to be done to keep the federal money.
Codey was speaking to the New Jersey State League of Municipalities convention Thursday in Atlantic City, but his spokeswoman, Kelley Heck, said, "Governor Codey is aware of the letter. He has been briefed. . . . He does not want to do anything that will jeopardize federal funding."
Existence of the letter came to light in arguments before the appellate division of the state Superior Court in Trenton. There, a pro-hunting group sought to force Campbell to throw open the state lands for bear hunting.
"The commissioner lacks the statutory authority to close the land," said Anna Seidman, a Washington-based lawyer for a worldwide hunter's group called Safari Club International of Tucson, Ariz. "The statute indicates there has to be some sort of danger. . . . He is closing the land for the purpose of stopping the hunt."
"This is an issue of what the landowner can do with the land under their control," countered deputy attorney general Barbara Conklin, though she agreed with the justices that the state's ownership is different from a private land-holder in that government must act "reasonably" and a private owner can be arbitrary.
Campbell has fought to not hold a bear hunt this year. He has said it would be costly, up to $150,000 he is not prepared to spend. He added Thursday that he would like to focus resources on other methods of bear population control, such as contraception.
And Campbell has said he made promises to anti-hunting groups that, after last year's bear hunt, the first in 33 years, the state would try other ways to slow the burgeoning population.
Earlier Campbell lost an appeal to simply not hold the hunt, and his effort to delay that ruling was denied without comment by the appellate court Thursday. He still plans to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme court.
Meanwhile, Campbell said the DEP is complying with the court ruling by processing some 3,600 unofficial bear hunt applications already filed and posting new applications online. Applications are due by Dec. 4, the day of the last of three mandatory training sessions for bear hunters.
The state's Fish and Game Council, charged with fostering wildlife, had voted to hold a bear hunt from Dec. 6 through 11, overlapping with the buck-deer season. The council wants the hunt.
Campbell says New Jersey has 1,600 bears, but many who favor hunting bears say DEP biologists place the number up near 3,000. Last year, hunters killed 328 bears in six days on 1,558 square miles north of Interstate 78 and west of Interstate 287.
Dr. Mitchell Roffer, and Captain Donald Sowers.
