More blood on Murphy’s hands in latest NJ bear attack

I hate to say I told you so.

Please share this piece with Gov. Phil Murphy because he needs to hear it from you. He is going to kill someone.

It almost happened Wednesday. A 34-year-old woman walking along Gorney Road in Lafayette at 4:30 p.m. was confronted by a black bear. Without any known provocation, the bear charged her, attacked her, mauled her. It opened up wounds on her right arm and her right side.

Had it not been for the actions of a neighbor who saw the attack and drove his vehicle towards the bear with horn blaring, it’s a logical bet she could have been killed. This is officially considered an aggressive Category 1 encounter, which means if the bear is trapped by New Jersey Fish and Wildlife it will be euthanized.

Last winter in Sparta, about 5 miles away from this attack, there were two other bear attacks that killed two dogs and left an elderly woman with head and leg injuries.

In the summer of 2020, a man was left with 30 stitches after a bear attacked him inside his own garage.

This is not going to stop.

Not since Gov. Phil Murphy put an end to bear hunts in New Jersey as a way to control the bear population. He made this terribly misguided decision despite the overwhelming evidence offered by his own wildlife experts that a hunt was absolutely necessary and that other available humane solutions were ineffective and therefore not solutions at all.

Things are bound to get worse. This isn’t just my opinion. From Erin Vogt’s article on New Jersey 101.5:

"We predicted things like this happening when they shut the bear hunt down,” United Bowhunters of New Jersey president, John Erndl, said to New Jersey 101.5.
He said the bear population is “exploding” across the state and that more incidents are going to happen, if no further preventative actions are taken.

See, the problem is bears don’t care about politics or about a governor burnishing his progressive credentials for a White House bid. What they care about is survival. They care about eating. They care about having enough land to exist.

When the population skyrockets, and that process is well underway without a hunt since 2020, the bears must spread out more and travel into more populated areas.

As they do, they see humans more often, which over time makes them lose their sense of fear. They will naturally become more aggressive. It’s not their fault.

It’s the governor’s fault.

These attacks will increase. People are going to start dying. When will Gov. Murphy decide it’s time to listen to his own wildlife experts? Will it be when an elderly person bleeds out from their wounds? Or will it take someone’s young toddler being dragged into the woods and mauled to death?

Too graphic? Sorry, but this is too important. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. These are the things that will begin to happen more over the years if the bear population is not managed by hunting.

Are you reading this Gov. Murphy? Or is your head too far up your ass?

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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