Michael A. Meloro Jr., Fordham Law School 2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps no issue further divides urban and rural environmentalists more than hunting. On one hand, hunting enthusiasts<\/a> cite land preservation, habitat conservation, wildlife population management, and even the concept of \u2018free range\u2019 meat as reasons to support the pastime. However, many environmentalists\u2013such as former New Jersey State Senator Lesniak\u2013argue that hunts such as the state bear hunt are inhumane, anti-science<\/a>, and unnecessary to provide rural New Jersey with a proper balance of bear population per acre. While New Jersey is not known for its outdoorsy culture, or for its rural spaces, the state bear hunt highlights the fierce urban-rural divide within the state. The great majority of New Jersey residents reside in urban areas, with only 5% of the population residing in rural areas, half of the 1970 total<\/a>. However, 5% of a state nearing nine million residents is still a significant bloc, and rural land cover far exceeds its paltry population total\u2013well over 70% of the state\u2019s land is dedicated to non-urban land use<\/a> such as forests, wetlands and agriculture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1958, the year of the first regulated hunt, New Jersey\u2019s bear population had dwindled <\/a>to an estimated 56-71 bears. While it would be difficult to determine the amount of black bears prior to European contact, their initial descent to the 1958 figure is attributed to indiscriminate unregulated killing of bears to clear the way for lumber, agriculture and urban development<\/a>. The hunt was justifiably halted in 1971 when bear populations dwindled to an all time recorded low of 25 wild bears<\/a>. After this hiatus, the hunt restarted in the mid 2000s. Notably, the hunt restarted during the tenure of environmentalist Governor Jim McGreevey, whose landmark 2004 signing of the bipartisan Highlands Act<\/a> has saved countless acres of rural Northwestern New Jersey from urban sprawl. Unlike the first hunts of the 1958-1971 era, this new era of hunting combined with reintroduction of bears and land preservation<\/a> has not interfered with the goal of a balanced bear population; New Jersey now has a healthy bear population<\/a> which surpasses the 3,000 mark, with around 10-15% of the population culled each year in the hunt<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Urbanite environmentalists should consider that the greatest threat to bears (and all animals for that matter) is urban sprawl, which happens when human development fragments animal habitat<\/a>. The State Commissioner of Environmental Protection, under New Jersey Governor Murphy<\/a>, determined that \u201coverpopulation and dispersal of bears to areas with less supportive natural habitat is a concern for public safety as well as the overall health and sustainability of the species<\/a>.\u201d This is especially relevant because Commissioner LaTourette made his determination of sustainability by considering the need for balance of bear density in certain regions, and he found that increased aggression is a problem in highly bear dense areas<\/a>. Consequently, any discussion of bear hunting in New Jersey must also consider bear density, and human population density as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While urban environmentalists in Trenton push to end the bear hunt, they also turn a blind eye to urban sprawl which the State\u2019s Commissioner of Environmental Protection actually cites as a reason to have the bear hunt<\/a>. As the state faces a housing shortage, New Jersey laws<\/a> supported by former Senator Lesniak\u2019s colleagues in Trenton exempt urban areas from housing development mandates, pushing new housing construction into New Jersey\u2019s dwindling rural and environmentally sensitive areas. As if exempting urban areas were not enough to amplify sprawl, initial drafts of the newest affordable housing law were so detrimental to rural areas that the Highlands Council, which oversees land use in watershed areas responsible for large portions of the state\u2019s drinking water, had to reach out to legislators to convince them that the housing bill needed to consider not building on environmentally sensitive areas<\/a>. The next time urban environmentalists claim that hunting is damaging the most robust bear population in New Jersey\u2019s recorded history, they should consider that their inability to solve an urban housing shortage without wantonly bulldozing forests will starve and displace more bears<\/a> than any hunter could shoot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Michael A. Meloro Jr., Fordham Law School 2026 Perhaps no issue further divides urban and rural environmentalists more than hunting. On one hand, hunting enthusiasts cite land preservation, habitat conservation, wildlife population management, and even<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,16,93,52,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-rights","category-forest","category-land-preservation","category-state-and-local","category-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamlawelr.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}