The
Animal Protection League of NJ (aplnj.org) is ready and waiting for us. Here’s what’s been happening.
It
all starts with an issue: New Jersey black bears . . . and the bear hunt
scheduled for next month (Oct. 12-17), with two more in December. That’s right: Despite the Covid-19 pandemic,
with all its horrors, bear hunts will go
on – unless those of us who are against them for myriad strong reasons can prevail
over Gov. Phil Murphy and the state Division
of Fish and Wildlife (DFW).
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| APLNJ pic |
The
groundwork to fight NJ bear hunts has been laid.
A
new coalition against the hunts is the first thing to know about. “The New Jersey Black Bear Coalition” includes former state senator Raymond Lesniak
(long a fighter for animals here), Robert Torricelli, former US senator, and
over a dozen state and national organizations, including the Animal Protection
League of NJ and its Bear Group program, the Humane Society of the US, the Sierra Club NJ chapter, the Animal Legal
Defense Fund and New Jersey Voters for Animals.
In
a July letter to Gov. Murphy, the Coalition urged him “to issue an executive
order to stop the 2020 hunt in its entirety because the hunt is not consistent
with your prior actions to ensure public health during the pandemic, is not
based on science, and ignores public opinion against the hunt.”
A
Lesniak-Torricelli op-ed published last month in InsiderNJ vividly
describes the hazards of bear hunts in the midst of a pandemic, closing with “Our coalition’s
request to suspend the 2020 black bear trophy hunt would remedy these problems,
maintain the credibility of the governor’s prior efforts to flatten the curve,
and protect public health.”
https://www.insidernj.com/governor-murphy-ban-2020-bear-hunt/
Senator
Lesniak has produced a petition against the bear hunts that everyone is invited
to sign. Here’s the link: https://www.lesniakinstitute.org/bears/#section1. Please
sign it now, and pass the link on to others you know would want to sign.
“Only
a knucklehead would kill a bear,” billboards around the state will declare,
urging people to “Tell the governor . . .
Stop the hunt."
This
month, each organization in the coalition will hold
independent-but-standardized ZOOM meetings with members, so watch for APLNJ’s
meeting notice. Angi Metler, the
organization’s founder and executive director, anticipates a ZOOM rally at some
point after the meeting.
The coalition is developing several initiatives, starting
with a rule-making proposal for the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to
change its approach on bears.
‘Fish
gotta swim. . . '
A writer
who looks on hawks, squirrels, lizards and moles with equal respect and
affection, Margaret Renkl writes a regular column for the NYTimes about
flora, fauna . . . and living. Her
latest piece describes the animals specified here, all doing their thing. She understands why the hawk must chase the
young squirrel, why the lizard keeps a careful eye on her and why the mole must
dig.
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| Eastern Mole Getty pic |
Renkl
agrees with poet William Blake that “every living thing is holy” – illustrated again
in her earlier column (linked inside this one) with her reaction to the death
of a feral cat.
And since
we’re mounting a statewide defense of our black bears, the belief that “every
living thing is holy” is especially timely.
#
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