The New Jersey bear hunt is back for the fifth consecutive year, and thousands of hunters will take to the woods tomorrow with shotguns and muzzleloaders. For another year, a few hundred of the bears not yet hibernating for the winter will be killed.



Hunter interest – and kills – have steadily declined over the past four years, and are likely to continue to slide during this week's six-day firearms season. But heading into the final year of the statewide management plan, the hunt has reached a turning point.



Aggressive-bear complaints have shot up significantly for the first time since the hunt began, and the bruin population is spreading more widely throughout the state than ever.

As the state prepares to adopt a new management plan for its largest mammals, hunters are lobbying for a bigger, longer hunting season to thin the animals’ numbers. However, animal-rights advocates contend that “baiting” bears with piles of sweets in the wild only exacerbates bear-human problems, and claim education and bear-proof garbage cans are the answer.

Mobile app users please click here for a full view of the graphics on this page.

Nearly everyone agrees there are too many bears in the northwestern corner of the state. But this week’s hunt will determine the balance between animal and human in bear country for years to come.

“I’ve seen the decrease in the level of interest (in the hunt). Each year you’ve seen the numbers dropping,” said Ray Szpond, the vice-president of the central region of the New Jersey State Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.

“Our goal has always been to keep bears away from unnatural food sources and help bear country residents become bear smart,” said Angi Metler, the director of the Bear Education and Resource group, an animal-rights organization that protested the hunt on the Statehouse steps Thursday.

The number of hunting permits slid from 7,900 in 2010, the record-setting first year of the current hunt, to 6,400 last year, according to authorities. The state says 6,300 permits have been issued this year.

Since 2010, the number of kills over the six-day December hunt has declined from 592 to 251. A total of 1,599 bears were killed during those four hunts.

Hunters readying their gear for Monday say they expect a more modest season, projecting another decline in kills. Szpond and others pointed to the abrupt cold turn the weather took before Thanksgiving, along with a dearth of acorns in the North Jersey woods – both of which are factors which encourage bears to hibernate, they said.



If the hunt is about keeping bears away from people, the hunters say, it needs to expand.



"To achieve the numbers they want to achieve, they're going to have to move the season earlier," said Szpond.



"It's science versus emotion," said John Rogalo, the vice-president of the northern region of the New Jersey State Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs. "You've got way more bears than the land will support."

The bear protestors, however, have maintained that the six-day December season is nothing more than a trophy hunt – and that it's just a political giveback to hunting groups by the Christie Administration. The protestors take special exception to baiting the bears, by leaving piles of food and then shooting them as they begin to eat. They demonstrated with a pile of bait donuts on the Statehouse steps Thursday.



"We're not going to take this," Metler said in an interview last week. "We're a peaceful organization."



Larry Ragonese, a spokesman with the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency expects roughly the same number of hunters, and probably a slightly-lower kill total. Approximately 200 to 250 bears are expected to be culled this week, out of a population of 2,500 – which has remained steady after reaching a peak of 3,400 before the 2010 hunt, Ragonese said.



"It looks like we've been able to stabilize the numbers," Ragonese said.

Already 123 bears have been killed by humans this year: 44 by farmers who are legally allowed to defend their livestock and property, and another 79 by collisions with cars, Ragonese said.



New Jersey bears have made headlines this autumn. Darsh Patel, a 22-year-old Rutgers student, was mauled to death by a 300-pound bear in the Apshawa Preserve in West Milford on Sept. 21, becoming the first bear-attack fatality in recorded state history. In October, the video of two bears fighting on a Rockaway street went viral.



Official statistics show bears have been more aggressive this year. The most-serious, Category I encounters have increased 55 percent, driven by livestock kills and agricultural damage, the DEP said. There is also a stark increase in Category II encounters statewide, including calls of bears ripping through garbage, Ragonese added.



"There have been some increases in aggressive behavior," he said.

The bears have also been more mobile. There’s been a marked increase in encounters in areas south of bear country, DEP records show. According to data from the DEP, the number of black bear sightings and complaints is up significantly in Hunterdon, Somerset, Monmouth, Mercer and Burlington counties from 2009 to 2013.

The animals have apparently followed greenways along the Delaware River, from Hunterdon County farms south to Camden and Burlington counties, Ragonese said.



"The bears are starting to move a little bit south," he said.

Interactive Map: See how bears have migrated around New Jersey with our interactive map below.

Though interest in the hunt and, in turn, its effect on the bear population has declined, statistics show it was having a significant impact on the number of black bear sightings and complaints in northern New Jersey.



In 2013, the number of bear complaints and sightings in Morris, Passaic, Sussex and Warren counties was down 47 percent from 2009, the year before the hunt started.



The six-day season's largest kill totals are expected on the first and last days of the hunt – and could be impacted by weather, said experts.



The state's Division of Fish and Wildlife is expected to adopt a new bear management plan in the summer, after this year's hunt total is calculated, and revised population estimate are made, Ragonese said.