4,434 hunters issued permits by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to participate in the state's second bear hunt in the past 35 years, six days of open season on a growing population of bears estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 animals that have been encountering humans at an increasingly alarming rate in the last several years.

Mr. MacMillan, 30, was hoping to catch and take his bear to a weigh station at Waywayanda State Park in Vernon, 40 miles northeast of Allamuchy, one of five checkpoints for the hunt in the northern part of the state. Hunters took their 200-pound-plus trophies there to be weighed, tagged and sampled by state biologists.

Environmental Protection officials said that 54 bears were killed as of 2:30 p.m. on Monday. The largest, a male black bear, weighed 606 pounds after being gutted, meaning that it probably weighed roughly 725 pounds when it was shot.

# posted by Z(ed) : 10:55 AM   |