Richard Cowen and John C. Ensslin

The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record

WOODLAND PARK, N.J. — Photos released Monday of a black bear killed during New Jersey's bear hunt show injuries that are consistent with those that caused a well-known bear to walk upright.

The state released photos that showed a bear killed during last week's hunt with badly injured front paws and a distinctive marking which are consistent with the injuries that compelled the bear known as Pedals to walk mostly on his hind legs.

A spokesman for New Jersey's Division of Fish and Wildlife said the photos “appear to be consistent” with videos of Pedals, the upright bear that roamed Morris County, N.J., for two years but is believed to have been killed on the first day of the state bow hunt. Five photos taken by the state as the bear was being checked in show a right limb missing a paw, a mangled left limb, and a “blaze” of white fur across the animal’s chest that match descriptions of Pedals.

There had been speculation that the bear killed was Pedals.

Pedals the tall-walking bear apparently killed by hunter

Also Monday, bills aimed at banning the bear hunt moved forward. The New Jersey Senate economic growth committee voted 3-2 to advance a bill called "Pedals' Law." The bill was introduced by state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, a Democrat from Union, N.J., on Thursday, the day reports first surfaced that Pedals had been killed. The bill would require the state to develop a five-year plan for non-lethal methods to control the black bear population as an alternative to the hunt.

A state spokesman Monday stopped short of confirming that the bear brought to a check station was Pedals, partly because the bear never was tagged and identified by state biologists.

“As previously stated, bears with a variety of injuries are occasionally brought to weigh stations, and the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife has no way of conclusively verifying the identity of any bear that has not been previously tagged or had a DNA sample previously taken,” said Bob Considine, with the state Department of Environmental Protection. “However, the injured paws and chest blaze of this particular adult bear brought to Green Pond (check station) appear to be consistent with the bear seen walking upright on several videos taken from North Jersey residents over the past two years.”

Considine said the Division of Fish and Wildlife “has not, does not and will not” release the names of hunters.

“My neighbors are very upset about the death of our beloved bear,” said Angi Metler, executive director of the Animal Protection League of New Jersey, during the Senate committee hearing Monday. “He was not a nuisance bear.”

Christie veto likely

State Sen. Steven Oroho, a Republican from Sussex, who voted against the bill, cited the crop damage bears do to local farms and the number of encounters between bears and humans in his district.

“The amount of bear interaction has significantly increased since I was a child,” said Oroho, who also cited an encounter his son had with an aggressive bear while working on a local golf course.

The measure now goes to a vote by the full Senate.

Last week a state Assembly committee voted to ban bear hunts permanently when it approved a bill moving in that house.

Both bills are likely to run into opposition from Gov. Chris Christie, whose administration reinstated the bear hunt in 2010 after it had become a campaign issue with Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, who opposed the hunt.

The most recent statistics from the Division of Fish and Wildlife showed 1,202 complaints of bear damage and nuisance fielded by the division this year between January and September, a nearly 10% increase over the same period in 2015.

Online sensation

Rumors that Pedals had been killed began circulating last week. The bear, which walked upright as it foraged through suburban Morris County searching for food was frequently videotaped and became an online sensation. Supporters put together a Facebook page, Pedals the Bipedal Bear, and because they were concerned that the animal would have trouble surviving, raised more than $20,000 to have him relocated to an enclosed pen at a wildlife sanctuary in upstate New York.

But the Division of Fish and Wildlife chose to allow the bear to roam free — and stood by that decision Monday.

Dave Chanda, the director of the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, said Monday that the bear weighed in at 333 pounds, which suggested he had no trouble feeding himself.

“It was a healthy animal. It had survived two pretty tough winters and two hunts. Wild animals don’t belong in captivity,” said Chanda.

Chanda said he understood people’s attachment to Pedals. “Certainly, that animal was so visible to so, so many,” he said. “It was an animal that was able to overcome its disabilities to survive for so long.”

Hunters took 562 bears in New Jersey’s six-day bow and muzzleloader season that ended Saturday. Of that total, 23% of the bears killed were bruins that had been tagged in 2016.

Chanda said the December firearm season is on for Dec. 5-10, but will be called off if the percentage of tagged bears killed reaches 30%.

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