Following a court order siding with the Murphy administration over concerns for public safety, the state’s controversial bear hunt is back after a two-year hiatus.
Animal rights groups fought to permanently stop the hunt and they had a sympathetic ear in Gov. Phil Murphy, who campaigned on a promise that, if elected, he would end the hunt and shift the focus to nonlethal management. But the Department of Environmental Protection said the state had to bring back the bear hunt because nonlethal methods, like bear traps, were not effective enough in reducing the amount of interactions between bears and people. Now environmental activists are calling Murphy out for changing course.
The hunt resumed on Tuesday and will continue through Dec. 10. A 290-pound bear became one of the first harvests.
