NJ man mugged by black bear for sandwich

[GF.]

I am not making this up: The guy says he was packing up his car for a trip and had a nice, smelly italian tyle sub in the trunk... I suppose maybe he was eating it while he packed... Anyway, story is, the bear came up behind him, basically cold-cocked the guy and ran off with the sammich.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/new_jersey/20090702_ap_njmansaysbearmuggedhimforsandwich.html

Here's the fictional part - the NJ DEP/DEC/DNR/DOW/DFG or whatever they call themselves here has declined to classify this as an 'attack'. It's just an 'incident'.

I tend to stay away from anything that sounds like a conspiracy theory because you so often have to be willing to act lust a little bit paranoid to buy into them, but NJ has had a growing human-bear conflict problem for years now, and every year there has been the annual knock-down-drag-out hoo-raw between the widlife managers (science) and the antis (religion) with the antis winning the battle every time around. Even when the seasons get passed, they get reversed again....


So JMO, classifying an (allegedly) unprovoked encounter between man & bear assomehow 'not' a bear attack just seems a little too conveeeeenient for the antis....

Honestly, I don't care so much if the guy was holding up bits of salami and trying to get the bear to sit up and beg--if the bear has gotten away with kicking some human butt over a food source, he's gonna do it again and again and again, because it's just so luch less effort than ripping out stumps for the sake of a few ants and grubs. Not to say that the guy didn't deserve that can o' whoop-ass if he was messing around with the wildlife, but now that there's a problem bear out there, it's gotta go.

[alan]

Hopefully the guy was one who supported closing down the bear hunts in NJ. I'm afraid that's what it's going to take to convince some.

[LampLighter]

And I am not making this up :

in October of 07, I was up a tree deer hunting and I left my pack at the base of the tree. There was nothing in it I really needed in the tree. However, along with my licenses, GPS, truck keys, was a bacon sandwich. Well, about 6:30 am, a big black bear came along and sure enough he smelled the sandwich. He came to the pack, began to try to bite it open, and I hollared at him, " yaaaa, get". He looked at me like I was nuts, and commenced to leave with the pack in his mouth. I opened fire with a can of UDAT Bear Spray from Cabela's. He immediately dropped the pack, and ran away very fast and never stopped.

[Smokey]

So that spray really does work?

[TinStar]

That man down in NJ lives in the next town up from my brother and happens to be the future father-in-law of my nephew. He is getting married this weekend. (My brother's son). My brother called and told me about it and we saw it on the Sam Shepheard show on Fox cable national news last night. No BS. Thanks to the wussie state they have no bear season anymore. My bro has had 500# + bears in his yard and it usually is every week at least. My niece down there could not leave her house the other day because a sow was in her yard for hours with cubs. A BIG sow. Someday as my brother said a little kid will get killed and then the SH will hit the fan. Told my brother to have Brian's father-in-law attempt a suit at the state to try to overturn this no-sesson crap.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[Bwana416]

Was it Yogi or Boo-Boo?:)

-Ray

[alan]

growing[/I] human-bear conflict problem for years now, and every year
there has been the annual knock-down-drag-out hoo-raw between the widlife managers (science) and the antis (religion) with the antis winning the battle every time

This is the first time I heard religion blamed on this. Ignorance knows no bounds. Animal rights activist groups have nothing to do with religion are just ignorant, emotional bleeding heart liberals dumbed down and feminized by decades of our public education.

[GF.]

It's all indoctrination, man.... Some people can question their own beliefs, some can't. Doesn't matter if they call themselves Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican, PETAn, Vegan or Hindu.

If they believe that it's 'immoral' (AKA a 'sin' ) to kill a bear, a deer, a whale or a cockroach, then there's no amount of logic, data, evidence or debate that will convince them otherwise; their position is simply not negotiable, and any intrinsic hypocrisies are immaterial to their point of view.

For example, PETA sez 'A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy', but I'd bet that most PETA supporters, 'Vegans' and so forth are firmly Pro Choice.

Which is fine until they want to start writing the laws that everybody else must live by, whether 'everybody' shares that iron-clad belief or not. Sooner or later, if laws are to be written, they have to be written based on that which can be proven, factually, to the satisfaction of any reasonable person. Otherwise, we've got a pure Mobocracy.

Disco Channel has a new series they call 'Whale Wars'; I haven't seen the show, only the promo spots. Looks to me as if a bunch of Greenpeacer types are playing vigilante/hero on the high seas and getting the celebrity treatment for their efforts. If international laws prohibit whaling, then this should be settled as a matter of law. If you can't jail the whalers, then you impose sanctions on their government. On the other hand, if the whale stocks have increased to where they can sustain a managed harvest, then the whalers are hunters just like you and me, and DiscoChannel's 'heroes' are just some punks getting their 15 minutes.

Like I said, I've only seen the promo spots, so if I'm wrong about this, feel free to correct, clarify, or elaborate.

Anyway, back to the bears.... Science says NJ has a growing black bear population which is becoming a growing problem. Incontestable data; more sightings, more road kills, more damage incidents, and soon enough somebody's gonna get mauled or killed, just as happened when a blackie munched on somebody's infant/toddler a few years ago, just about an hour from NYC.

So the scentific options are:

1) Spend a lot of public money capturing and relocating/destroying the problem bears.
2) Provide an economic stimulus to the state economy by running a bear hunt and getting people to spend money on gear, shells, travel, food, lodging and all the rest.
3) Do nothing until somebody gets killed and then revisit options 1 & 2, by which time option 1 has gotten a whole lot more expensive.
4) Continue caving in to those who sincerely believe that it's 'immoral' to kill the bears until they're nearly as thick as whitetails, but with much bigger teeth. At which point I don't know what'll happen.... Maybe some people will decide that the science isn't so bad after all.

Interesting thought, though.... Somebody ran a study and found that black bear populations grow faster under hunting pressure, because boars kill cubs and hunters usually target boars. That has some pretty interesting management implications, but I suppose the thread would fit better ion the bears page...

[TinStar]

Just spoke with my brother tonight. The attack on my nephew's father-in-law is being called an "incident" by the state and a "food theft"; not a bear attack. Wonder what they will call it when a little kid gets their guts ripped out and half eaten.

Alan,
You are spot on about it having nothing to do with religion unless someone makes it into a "religion"; which some do. Which is what extreme enviormentalism has become to many--"earth worship". But this has nothing at all to do with mainstream religious views.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!