Below is a quote cut & pasted from the article that follows. It is the reason we need a contituitonal amendment to fish, hunt, and trap. Spread the word to the masses to attend Oct 28th - Battle of Monmouth! This woman is articulating exactly what is in the Panter / Karcher bills!!! She also belongs to a group that finances the Panter / Karcher campaign.
Ant
*****Janet Pizar, director of the Bear Education And Resource Group, said recently that, having won a court battle over the bear hunt, the next move would be "to outlaw the killing of our bears." Then, she said, all hunting would be next.***** Wednesday, October 10, 2007 (newton herald)
By BRUCE A. SCRUTON
bscruton@njherald.com In film, he can appear as a dancing, friendly and bumbling friend — voice supplied by Phil Harris — or a bad comedian whose best friend is a frog. There was also the time he was somewhat closer to character, a dim-witted individual, carrying a club with a hankering for rabbit stew.
Most people's views, and concepts, of bears is what they see in "Baloo," from "Jungle Book," "Fozzie," from the "Muppets" or "Br'er Bear," from "Song of the South." There is the real, live animal seen in Gentle Ben, or Grizzly Adams and, of course, more true-to-life short features, like "Bear Country" of the 1950s, that introduced many to the natural world.
But real bears don't stand on stage and get a custard pie thrown in their face. They won't cuddle up at night under the covers. And, except those trained for zoo or circus acts, bears don't dance a jig or wrestle with the human television star.
"We have them in zoos and images of them around us," said Margaret J. King, director of Cultural Studies & Analysis in Philadelphia. "We make art objects out of nature. It's a very primitive and cultural thing."
King is among those who have written about what is being called the "Disney effect" — how Disney films, whether animated, live action or "nature documentaries" have influenced not just filmmaking, but public attitudes toward animals and the environment.
Anthromorphism is the clinical term to describe how humans ascribe human-like qualities to other species. "Bears are large game and competitors," she said of the long cultural fascination humans have had with bears. "They also stand on their rear legs, bipedalism, and look like us."
Put in the middle of a New Jersey political fight, bears are being made into an image by both sides. Is the elevation of bear to near-human status, based on true feelings or political leanings?
People grew up cuddling "Teddy" or hugging Winnie the Pooh, whose only bad habit was trying to steal honey, so "cute" and "timid" are words easily ascribed to black bears by those against hunting. They take pictures of bears eating from a human's hand or "playing" in a hammock.
In the wild, young animals practice skills they will need as adults. They chase their mother's tail; roughhouse with each other, mocking a "kill" or fight for a chance to mate. Is it really play and do they even know what "play" is?
Janet Pizar, director of the Bear Education And Resource Group, said recently that, having won a court battle over the bear hunt, the next move would be "to outlaw the killing of our bears." Then, she said, all hunting would be next.
On the other side, some have described bears "waiting in ambush" as if the individual animals could read a timetable or calendar and know that the garbageman only comes Tuesday mornings. "It's only a matter of time until someone gets killed," goes the mantra. They point to self-proclaimed bear "expert" Timothy Tredwell who studied Alaskan grizzlies for more than a dozen years. He was killed and eaten by the bears.
In reality, naturalists say bears are creatures whose nature is to find something to eat. They have a place in the natural world and it's not on our cultural pedestal.
King, whose business "decodes how consumers determine value in products, concepts and ideas," said the bear's place in our world "is very evolutionary" and based on our cultural background. The ancient Greeks named two constellations after bears, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Eskimos revere the polar bear, but it doesn't stop them from taking one in a hunt if they can.
Other Native Americans also worshiped the bear and lived beside them.
Today, King said, more than 90 percent of our day is spend inside, in optimum conditions that we have created for ourselves. "We don't like exposure to nature," she said. "We have evolved in nature to have as little to do with Nature as possible. We have taken nature and stylized it."
"There are a million misconceptions about bears," said Gary Alt, a noted wildlife biologist who ran Pennsylvania's bear management and deer management plans until his resignation three years ago. "People generally fall into two categories — they want to cuddle them or kill them."
Alt said the black bear population across the country is growing tremendously. In California where he now lives, the bear population has doubled to an estimated 32,000 since 1982.
In New York the bear population is still expanding and this year the state is reverting to a previous policy of opening the bear hunt in the Catskills on the same day the deer hunting season begins, effectively expanding the season by a week over the past few years.
In the 1990 hunt, 77 bears were taken in the Catskill area. During the 2005 hunt, there were nearly 500 bears killed in the Catskills and last year, the state said 365 bears were killed.
While some point to those numbers and note that even with hunting, bear numbers are increasing — an argument not to have a hunt — Alt said a well-managed hunt is not meant to decrease any population, but to provide a balance.
"If you really want to drop the population, you just say, 'Go get 'em!' Bears are more easy to overhunt than deer," he said.
In a healthy deer herd, does can begin to breed at about six months and have offspring each year. Bears don't start to breed until three years of age and have cubs every two years.
Jamie O'Boyle, senior analyst at Cultural Studies & Analysis said that while "both bears ("teddy") and deer ("Bambi") are big stars in our cultural Pantheon of anthropomorphized nature, bears trump deer because they are more like us. We can see a clumsy, more clownish, and therefore harmless, version of ourselves."
And there is an additional element — perceived rarity. "There is a simple equation in marketing, perception of rarity = higher value," he said. "End result; we instinctively lean towards encouraging bears but controlling the deer."
Alt said being the most densely human populated state, "New Jersey is at the frontier at human-wildlife confrontation and what to do about it."
This great experiment, he said, is tipped in the bears favor for now, but the balance will swing quickly towards bear population control.
"When it starts will just be getting the right bears doing the wrong things," he said. "It will require some sort of injuries. That will be the spark to set off the gas, then it'll blow.
"New jersey is ripe and ready for it," Alt said. "New Jersey will test the waters as to how far you can push this."
