PLEASE CROSS POST!
on 12/7/04 5:09 PM, Mary Alice Pollard at [EMAIL PROTECTED] sent:
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From: "Stu Chaifetz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Hi everyone,
This was in today's edition of the Bergen Record.
If you haven't joined the Animal Protection PAC yet, this is your chance to
be a founding member! As stated in the article, we have bold ambitions and
the better armed we are with your support and donations now, the better we
will be able to carry them out.
The hunters are preparing to act; lets show them what people dedicated to an
honorable cause can do!
Stu Chaifetz
Director, Animal Protection PAC
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.ProtectNJAnimals.com/ -- The website is now up and running!
Please make checks out to:
New Jersey Legislative Action for Animals
PO Box 174
Manalapan NJ 07726
(Donations are not tax-deductible)
------------------
Animal activists celebrate cancellation of bear hunt
By RICHARD COWEN
STAFF WRITER
Bergen Record
TRENTON - Animal rights activists came to the State House on Monday to
celebrate the eleventh-hour cancellation of the bear hunt and to take aim at
the hunter-dominated state Fish and Game Council.
About two dozen members of the Humane Society of the United States, the New
Jersey Animal Rights Alliance, and the Bear Education and Resource group of
West Milford held a noon rally on the steps of the State House. They cheered
the state Supreme Court's decision late last week canceling the bear hunt.
But they wasted no time in unveiling a political campaign to radically
reshape the council, which sets hunting seasons.
The activists danced on the steps of the State House and sang "Happy Days
Are Here Again," then announced the formation of a political action
committee to be known as the Animal Protection PAC. The PAC will push for
adoption of a bill now in the Assembly that would transform the council into
an agency that favors non-lethal means of wildlife management, such as
contraception, over hunting.
"It's so gratifying to be here today instead of standing in front of a check
station at Wawayanda State Park watching hunters bring in dead bear cubs,"
said Lynda Smith, director of the West Milford-based BEAR group.
Wawayanda, in Vernon, is where Smith and other animal rights activists
protested last year after New Jersey allowed its first bear hunt since 1970..
Hunters killed 328 bruins.
Across the street from the celebrants, a lone hunt supporter, Bill Opferman,
stood dressed in an orange hunting cap and camouflage. In the pouring rain,
the Hamilton Township resident held up a sign declaring, "Yes New Jersey
Bear Hunt in 2005."
Opferman defended hunters as lovers of nature, not merely animal killers.
"Some of what these animal rights groups say, hunters can agree with. We're
not into animal cruelty either," he said. "But what these groups are out to
do is ban hunting altogether."
After the rally, the activists took a short ride to state Environmental
Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell's office at the Department of Environmental
Protection to thank him for his early refusal this year to issue permits for
the second bear hunt. Campbell, however, was at a meeting and did not
receive the activists, who then boarded a bus and went home.
Campbell's refusal to issue permits led to a lawsuit by an Ohio-based
sportsmen's group contesting the commissioner's power to veto actions by the
game council. The Supreme Court sided with Campbell, saying all wildlife
management policy is subject to his approval. The top court called off the
hunt until the council could update its bear management plan, subject to the
commissioner's approval.
The animal rights campaign's short-term aim is support for an Assembly bill
that would increase Fish and Game Council membership from 11 to 13. The
bill, A-2852, sponsored by Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone, D-Bayonne, also
would reduce the number of hunters on the governor-appointed council from
six to two. It also would allot five seats for members of animal welfare
groups and one for the environmental commissioner.
Stu Chaifetz, a member of the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance and
organizer of the PAC, acknowledged next year's gubernatorial election and
said, "We're going to reach out to the hundreds of thousands of New Jersey
residents who love animals."
Larry Lehman, president of the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs,
said Monday evening that hunters would mount their own lobbying effort to
defeat the bill. He said contraception is only in the experimental stage,
and even if ultimately successful, is years away from implementation. He
added that any reconstituted council with an anti-hunting majority would not
work.
Lehman said bears should be hunted to reduce the population and that deer,
which are hunted every year, are in no danger of being wiped out. "We have
more deer in New Jersey than we did in the 1950s," he said. "The Fish and
Game Council has been doing a good job."
Chiappone appeared at the rally and told the animal rights activists: "I
think you have a majority of New Jersey on your side. This is the number one
issue in the state right now."
He expressed confidence that his bill would go to public hearings by the
Assembly Environment Committee, possibly by early next year.
--
http://www.ProtectNJAnimals.com/
"A single voice may not be heard, but the voices of many
cannot be ignored. " ~ Author Unknown
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