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black bear on the loose today in ridgewood. I wonder if he was just looking for a den in the $1m range, good schools for the cubs and a less than hour commute to bear stearns. :d
North of rt 23 is as wild and unbroken piece of NJ wilderness that exists.
Consider the state was releasing bears at 6 mile run near the D&R canal.
The natural distances bears require as their population increases distributes individuals to marginal locations. Bears are prolific in much more populated places than the Newark Watershed area north of rt23.
Nj bears travel far and wide looking for mates and new territory. Typically they follow streams as their main highways but a home range is quite large and bears are territorial. So bears need more suitable space than NJ has available.
The Ridgewood bear was a 400 pounder! They missed him with a tranquilizer dart, they asked a news copter to fly low to scare it out of a tree - he didn't budge. They squirted a firehose at him and he swatted at it with his paw. Meanwhile the locals were following it around from tree to tree. They finally darted him and shipped him out for west Jersey to deal with.
I guess Village residents didn't see this thread about the poor Rutgers hiker.
The Ridgewood bear was a 400 pounder! They missed him with a tranquilizer dart, they asked a news copter to fly low to scare it out of a tree - he didn't budge. They squirted a firehose at him and he swatted at it with his paw. Meanwhile the locals were following it around from tree to tree. They finally darted him and shipped him out for west Jersey to deal with.
I guess Village residents didn't see this thread about the poor Rutgers hiker.
Great, he'll probably be waiting in my driveway when I get home.
While I acknowledge that it was their running that likely set off the attack, I can't help but to empathize with them because of the situation. It is possibly the case that they had heard the good advice not to run before their hike, but they panicked. It's not easy to be relaxed around a large predator in the woods, and to keep a clear head while one is approaching you aggressively, while you are unarmed? Not sure if they knew better or not, but I know that it's an overwhelming instinct to leave the area when you find out that a bear is present.
Was the bear aggressive before or after they ran. I read "following" which sounds like it could have been. Even if running is understandable (though still really stupid) why did they separate? That's what doesn't make sense.
Consider the state was releasing bears at 6 mile run near the D&R canal.
And, when that fact was revealed to the mayor of Franklin Twp several years ago, he launched a protest over the issue of the township never having been notified by state officials that they were doing this.
I believe that, in the wake of that kerfuffle, the state has stopped releasing bears in Franklin Twp, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have departed from the area. A few days ago, while driving on one of the rural roads in the Pleasant Plains area, I spied a sign regarding the date of the beginning of the bear hunt in that area.
Black bear on the loose today in Ridgewood. I wonder if he was just looking for a den in the $1M range, good schools for the cubs and a less than hour commute to Bear Stearns.
Better you than us city slickers who don't know how to handle these miscreant animals.
He wasn't there. I was all set to grab the shotgun and the pit bull too.
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