TRENTON -- A bear hunt will be held this fall because the science supports a managed hunt and legally, the state Fish and Game Council has already scheduled one, Acting Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe said.

TRENTON -- A bear hunt will be held this fall because the science supports a managed hunt and legally, the state Fish and Game Council has already scheduled one, Acting Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe told a state Senate Budget Committee hearing.

During questioning by senators, McCabe told Sen. Linda Greenstein the legal authority to set a hunt rests with the council and there needs to be evidence to change that hunt. The hunt, she noted, is being conducted as recommended by a legal management plan.

McCabe appeared before the committee for nearly an hour and the questions on the hunt posed by Greenstein lasted just over three minutes, but that appearance led to a long news release from Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel on Wednesday.

While acknowledging McCabe's stance, he added, "This is because she backs the Fish and Game scientists who likely won't be changing the science to stop the hunt."

When she was named commissioner, McCabe met with people from the Division of Fish and Wildlife, which fall under the DEP umbrella.

In April, division Director Larry Herrighty said a team from the division brought with it the studies of New Jersey's black bears done over the past six decades, as well as reports, independent of the division, by biologists at universities that have used New Jersey's bears for their own studies.

During last fall's campaign for governor, Phil Murphy promised that he would put a moratorium on the annual bear hunts pending further study.

Anti-hunt people, such as the Sierra Club and Angela Metler, director of the Animal Protection League of New Jersey, have argued there are several other ways of managing black bears rather than a hunt.

The Fish and Game Council's approved black bear management plan promotes the hunt as the proven method to control the bear population in the state.

Biologists estimate there are between 2,500 and 3,500 black bears in the northwestern corner of New Jersey, but also note that bears have been reported in each of the state's 21 counties.

In his release, Tittel said McCabe "stands by the science of the division who supports the hunt, rather than the real science," but doesn't explain what that "real science" is.

Tittel said the state estimated the bear population in the hunt area in 2010 to be about 3,400 animals and since then, hunters have harvested 3,426 bears.

"We are very concerned that there may not be any more bears left after this hunt," he concludes, adding that contrary to the hunt regulating the black bear population, "the evidence shows otherwise."

He does not say what that evidence is, other than the math, which doesn't take into account cubs being born over the past eight years nor bears moving into New Jersey from adjoining areas of New York and Pennsylvania, which have thriving bear populations and longer bear-hunting seasons.

In her testimony, McCabe noted that fertility control "is not ready to be used in wild populations," and that transporting nuisance bears to other areas won't work because the bear population "will readjust itself."

As to the issue of nuisance bears -- those that get into garbage and nose around people's homes -- the commissioner said, "It's mostly people who cause this," because bears are naturally attracted to the same foods humans are throwing out in their garbage.

She also noted that New Jersey bears are good at repopulating themselves. In most areas, she said, the fertility rate is about two cubs, while in New Jersey, the rate is four cubs. Mature females give birth to a litter every two years.

And while McCabe called the state's bear education program very active, Tittel said, "we know it's actually woefully inadequate due to various cuts under (former Gov. Chris) Christie."

And he said the state needs to post warning signs in bear country at trail heads with "Do's and Don'ts" appropriate for bear country.

He also said the state had eliminated bear aversion therapy, an idea that making noise, using pepper spray and even shooting the bears with rubber buckshot will make them afraid to return to that location.

Biologists in several studies from across the country have shown such "therapy" is only temporary. Bears that are simply moved after being live-trapped return to the same area in a few days. Those given "therapy" take a couple of days longer to return.

At the end of the conversation, Greenstein, who is assistant majority leader in the Senate, commented that 18 years ago, when she was first elected to the state Legislature, she was asked by a reporter what was the number one problem she heard from voters.

"Without missing a beat," Greenstein recalled, "I said, 'The bears.' "