Colts Neck: The Gun Lobby at Work

By: Susan Russell, Wildlife Policy Specialist

Reliably, a gun industry group has attacked former Colts Neck Mayor RoseAnn Scotti for her stand against its plans to weaken firearms ordinances in Colts Neck (New Jersey Outdoor Alliance Release 2/25/13). The former mayor’s concerns center on public safety and the law.

Justifications for stripping Colts Neck weapon ordinances have ranged from hunter ‘rights’ – hunting is a privilege bestowed by civil society – to desired  target ranges. Now, they rest on claimed “conservation” intent.

Yet established science long confirms that hunting pressure, especially on previously unhunted populations, stimulates breeding (see Putman). By providing more food for surviving females and increasing carrying capacity, killing leads to earlier pregnancies, better neonatal health, and larger litters. Throughout New Jersey, so-called controlled hunts, initially advertised as “five-year” events, are entering their 18th year; hunting perpetuates hunting. Non-hunted sites show no increase in breeding.

Baiting deer, a common method of kill in New Jersey, actually contributes to forest degeneration and auto-deer accidents. North American biologists and wildlife health centers rely on multiple studies to show that baiting can lead to forest degeneration by concentrating deer, who feed on natural vegetation in the area.   Baiting attracts coyotes, opossums, raccoons, and rodents who prey upon ground-nesting birds.

Bait contains invasive and exotic seeds that are deposited in the area by birds, animals, or wind, threatening the integrity of a forest community. Baiting encourages illegal activity and poaching, and increases auto/deer collisions as deer cross roads to reach food. Ironically, baiting improves reproduction in deer.

Baiting increases risk for multiple diseases in deer and other wildlife; the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study "strongly opposes legalization of deer baiting."

The Division of Fish and Wildlife has allowed massive baiting for recreational deer hunting since 1998. In 1998-1999, hunters distributed one million pounds of food for deer throughout New Jersey. Since then, the percentage of hunters who bait has increased significantly.

The most vocal proponent of stripping Colts Neck ordinances is a councilman and a hunter who sells deer bait.

The New Jersey Outdoor Alliance represents animal-use trade associations, including puppy mills, loggers, and “blood sports.” Its legislative agenda is supplied by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. The foundation serves “sportsmen and the outdoor industry… delivering returns on investments” for the National Rifle Association, the Archery Trade Association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (“the firearms industry trade association”), and ATK Federal Premium ammunition, among others. “Our goal,” says the foundation, “can help increase hunter access to public and private lands.”Access means “Location, Location, Location: Access to places to shoot and hunt that are close to population centers facilitates recruitment…” The closer to home – our homes – the better.

Under South Jersey Senate President Steven Sweeney, who received out-of-state donations from both the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun lobby is having a de-regulatory field day in New Jersey. In 2010, the industry slashed safety buffers for bows and crossbows, and razor-tipped missiles, from 450 to a mere 150 feet from occupied homes in the suburbs. Parents in Rumson, who found a bloodied deer killed by a razor-tipped arrow in their own backyard where their children play, and in Shrewsbury, have publicly objected to dangerous weaponry in residential areas and backyards. If the Colts Neck council enables the Orgo-Mauro dismantling of Colts Neck ordinances to succeed, these practices will be at families’ doorsteps.

Mr. Mauro portrays personnel from the Division of Fish and Wildlife as objective. In fact, the division partnered with gun and archery manufacturers “to build a strong partnership between the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation and state wildlife agencies by providing funding to state wildlife agencies to create greater hunting opportunities and put more hunters in the field.”

Surely, the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre, the Southeastern Wildlife Disease Study, newspaper and police accounts of hunters shooting into houses and cars, and the residents of Rumson and Shrewsbury are not telling “lies.”

To further correct the record, the Animal Protection League of New Jersey has not recommended the GonaCon contraceptive, which the United States Department of Agriculture deems up to “80 percent” effective, in Colts Neck. Whilst contraceptives, opposed by the industry as a “war on sportsmen,” are effective in certain situations, we have net seen evidence that the deer in Colts Neck are biologically overpopulated. We have seen plenty of evidence, however, that widespread recreational hunting will make matters worse. And that residents’ quality of life is jeopardized not by deer “management” imperatives, but out-of-state weapons manufacturer marketing plans.

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Alabama Department of Natural Resources Baiting Report

Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Disease Centre Baiting Report

National Shooting Sports Foundation, “About the National Shooting Sports Foundation,” http://www.nssf.org/ industry/aboutNSSF.cfm (28 Nov 2011)

For Shooting Trade, Trenton is Open for Business

Re (“Bill advances to permit real guns, not photos, at auctions for non-profit groups,” 11 June) and Blue Jersey http://www.bluejersey.com/diary/22219/for-shooting-trade-trenton-is-open-for-business

By Susan Russell

The Inquirer recently focused on New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney’s (D-Gloucester) Angler and Hunter Conservation Caucus for legislators and Camden Senator Donald Norcross’s sudden devotion to blood sports. The shooting caucuses are nationwide, and they are commercial.

At industry’s behest, Mr. Sweeney and other South Jersey, Norcross Machine Democrats have rammed a series of de-regulatory and “hunter access” bills through the Legislature, often at the expense of suburban and rural homeowners. Industry writes the model bills and cooperating legislators enact them.

The National Sportsmen’s Caucus “delivers returns on investments” to the National Rifle Association., the Archery Trade Association, Titanium, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (“the firearms industry trade association”), Safari Club International, Browning, ATK Federal Premium ammunition and others. [1] It is now calling the shots in Trenton and other state capitals.

Ammunition and firearms manufacturers have launched legislative and hunter “retention and recruitment” efforts in 39 states precisely because hunter-clients are sharply dwindling.[2] The goal is to bring “shooting and hunting close to population centers by making it easier” for clients to use their wares: Roll out of bed, step out the back door, and fire.

In 2007, the National Rifle Association in Fairfax, Virginia, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation in Newtown, Connecticut, contributed $6,000 and $1,500 respectively to New Jersey Senator Sweeney’s campaign.[3] The National Institute on Money in State Politics lists the NRA as a top contributor to Stephen Sweeney in 2007.[4] The Foundation and NRA were generous to Cape May Senator Jeff Van Drew.[5]

In 2008, Sweeney “delivered returns on investments” by forming the New Jersey Angler and Hunter Conservation Caucus. Sweeney’s caucus is part of the aforementioned National Assembly of Sportsmen’s Caucuses, which meets with its legislators in Trenton.[6] The national trade provides the legislative agenda, model bills, campaign position papers, political advisors, and “communications” or public relations support.

There is nothing “grassroots” about it.

For appearances, and at the same time, a political action committee and industry front that calls itself the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance emerged from the ether.

In 2010, Van Drew delivered his law that slashed home safety buffers for bow hunting from 450 to 150 feet in suburban and rural areas.

Despite sharply reduced numbers, and through Mr. Sweeney’s office, self-interests have purchased disproportionate and unprecedented power in the New Jersey Legislature.

As shooting, by design, encroaches into neighborhoods, it has become difficult for the majority of residents who do not hunt to avoid the disturbing sights, sounds, and risks of recreational killing, especially in previously off-limits suburbs.

“Something is seriously wrong, here,” wrote Rumson parents of young children when, as a result of Van Drew’s stripped safety buffer law, a hunter killed a deer in their suburban backyard. “Yet hunters can fire deadly weapons within 151 feet of our homes, send crazed and wounded animals onto our properties to leave behind pools of blood and state-of-the-art, designed-to-kill projectiles hidden amid the fallen leaves – all without notification.”[7] The bill drew fire from rural Millstone Township and the state’s largest newspaper. The town stated that it did not have a deer problem; it had a hunting problem.

The trade is not done yet. Crowning the caucus’s national agenda in New Jersey are several proposed constitutional amendments elevating hunting and trapping, privileges bestowed by society, to a constitutional right.

In practice, the legislation is intended to further abridge the genuine property rights of everyone else, and to effectively bar the majority from due process participation in wildlife laws and related land-use policy. Homeowner and local government objections to bows and guns too close for comfort, or enactment laws prohibiting cruel traps, for example, would be deemed “unconstitutional.”

If hunting is a “right,” the Archery Trade Association, not society, decides what is too close for comfort and appropriate. When the Reston, Virginia Homeowners Association acted against the use of deadly weapons directly adjacent to their houses and yards, the Archery Trade Association sued, and won.

The trade association’s message to affected local governments and homeowners: Tough luck.

“Local authorities cannot stop citizens from bow hunting deer on their property when hunting itself is a right conferred by the state’s Constitution” boasted the Archery Trade Association. “Maybe now they’ve learned they can’t make laws just because they don’t like bow hunting . . . when local groups or local governments force bow hunters to restore their rights in court, it’s going to cost them.” That is the trade’s Hunter Caucus in a nutshell, and that is who these legislators serve.

Something is indeed “seriously wrong here.” It is past time for the majority of responsible legislators who represent all citizens to stand up to the political bosses, both in, and out of, state.

——————————————————————————–

[1] Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, “About Us,” http://www.sportsmenslink.org/About-Us/CSF-Partners (accessed June 2011).
[2] National Assembly of Sportsmen’s Caucuses, “2011 Issue Briefs,”http://www.ammoland.com/2011/01/26/national-assembly-of-sportsmens-caucuses-2011-issue-briefs/#axzz1xc28tctV (Accessed June 2011).
[3]National Institute on Money in State Politics, “Follow the Money,” http://www.followthemoney.org/ (Accessed June 2012)
[4]National Institute, http://www.followthemoney.org/
[5]National Institute, http://www.followthemoney.org/
[6] http://www.sportsmenslink.org/state/nj http://stripersurf.com/forums/showthread.php?t=534750
[7] Commentary, TWO RIVER TIMES, 3-10 Dec 2010

Logging bill is about hunting

http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2012/06/logging_bill_is_about_hunting.html

By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

on June 23, 2012 at 6:00 AM, updated September 14, 2012 at 4:02 PM

By Sue Russell

New Jersey’s controversial Forest Harvest bill (S1085), rechristened the Forest Stewardship Bill, will allow commercial logging, or “thinning,” in state forests. The euphemism-rich measure raises questions of transparency, ripe conflicts in policy and interest, and the public trust.

In state legislatures, control over public lands, wildlife and funds is concentrated in alarmingly few partnered hands, each washing the other. Vague “stewardship” and “science” nostrums too often serve commercial agendas.

The logging bill’s sponsors — Sens. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), Donald Norcross (D-Camden) and Steven Oroho (R-Sussex) — are members of the Angler and Hunter Conservation Caucus, an arm of the National Assembly of Sportsmen’s Caucuses.

Logging supporters do not disclose the fact that S1085 will increase the population of white-tailed deer. That’s why Smith has reintroduced legislation — derailed last session — to permit killing deer on forest stewardship lands by poaching methods long deemed unethical, unsporting and unsafe: killing animals directly over bait, any time of day or night, and stunning deer with lights.

The organizations advocating for S1085 are part of Teaming With Wildlife, a partnership among hunting advocacy groups, conservation organizations and hunting equipment manufacturers.

The TWW national steering committee is teeming with firearms manufacturers, including ATK Ammunition Systems, Remington Arms Inc., SigArms Corporation, the Archery Trade Association, as well as state game agencies, hunting groups, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy. The latter was the subject of a

Washington Post series on its corporate associations.

Googling “habitat development” for deer will confirm that logging or thinning forests is a long-standing game management staple.

Forty scientists who signed a letter against the original legislation noted that commercial logging would “grow the deer herd even more.” The original bill — the result of “three years of stakeholder” meetings — was criticized as damaging and commercial.

Commercial logging supporters prefer to say that the bill will benefit “nongame” warblers. Warbler protection does not require commercial logging. The rub: The self-appointed TWW stakeholders relentlessly pursue deer-killing programs they claim protect “forest systems.” Now, they are lobbying for commercial legislation that “grows the herd.”

Mature, contiguous forests do not support large numbers of deer. In 1977, the Journal of Wildlife Management reported that “deer herds are being managed with ever-increasing intensity ... directed at increasing the productivity of the white-tailed deer through habitat manipulation and harvest regulation.” Nationwide, from 1975 to 1985, millions of acres were logged, burned and defoliated for commercial hunting. The majority of acreage burned and logged, wrote the Department of the Interior, benefited deer.

The public disapproves of killing animals “over bait,” a poaching practice by the Division of Fish and Wildlife for deer since the late 1990s, and ironically supported by those who decry deer damage to forests. Baiting changes tree species’ composition and holds back forest regeneration, as it concentrates deer, who continue to feed on natural browse in the area. In eastern deciduous forests, ground-nesting birds were less abundant in baiting areas. Baiting concentrates coyotes, raccoons and opossums near ground-nesting birds. It increases car accidents and the spread of wildlife diseases.

The basic fact is: Logging creates more deer. There is virtually no public demand for logging our state forests. Maximizing deer for hunter-clients, baiting and trapping beavers, and wiping out beneficial birds are examples of how the combine helps cause forest degeneration and profits from the results.

The Public Trust Doctrine establishes government as trustee over natural resources “too important to be owned.” TWW is bent on perpetuating the cozy misalliances, mismanagement and attitudes of the past century. In New Jersey, the only missing stakeholder is the public.

Sue Russell is wildlife policy specialist for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey.

VOTE NO - Grim Package of Companion Bills

VOTE NO – COMMERCIAL LOGGING (S1085), POACHING (S1848), AND PRESCRIBED BURN (S368) BILLS

There is virtually no public demand for a grim package of companion bills—commercial logging of our state forests (S1085), the Poaching-Baiting Bill (S1848), and the Prescriptive Burn Bill (S368), currently promoted in the Legislature. The Kill-Cut-Burn legislation is the product of national timber, gun, and game commercial associations under Teaming with Wildlife. (See below).

Logging by FSC-certified forest company in Sweden.

Photo: Olli Manninen/Protect the Forest 2009.

S1085: will permit commercial logging of our state forests, primarily for hunted species and timber. As noted by the 40 scientists who signed a letter against the original version of the legislation, logging will “grow the deer herd even more.” [1]

The scientists also stated there was no need to turn mature forests into early successional landscapes, which are already “plentiful.” Contiguous forests, which do not support large numbers of deer, are not plentiful. The scientists also pointed out that the claim that a “healthy forest” must be logged and managed “is based simply on outdated, unscientific folklore.” The late addition of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards to placate opponents changes none of the above, key objections.

The rub: the self-appointed Teaming with Wildlife (TWW) “stakeholders” relentlessly pursue deer killing programs they claim protect “forest systems.” Now, they are lobbying for commercial legislation that “grows the herd.” And more killing of the resultant deer.

Logging reduces forest canopy cover, causing more sunlight to reach the forest floor, which results in rapid growth of flammable brush and creates hotter, drier conditions.

Among rationales offered to justify commercial logging is fire prevention. Earth Island Institute’s John Muir Project reviewed Forest Service abuses of the National Fire Plan (NFP). The portion of all new National Fire Plan-funded commercial logging projects in the Sierra National forests within 200 feet of homes? None. What portion of all new NFP-funded commercial logging projects on Sierra Nevada national forests focus on the removal of flammable undergrowth? None. What portion of all funds proposed for new NFP projects on Sierra Nevada national forests are being used for commercial logging projects? Answer: 97%.[2]

The newly added FSC standards are not a panacea. The prestigious Swedish Society for Nature Conservation left FSC in 2010, stating that “FSC-certified companies violate Swedish forestry law and the FSC standard. Numerous forests with great importance for nature conservation are being logged at an alarming rate, even by companies certified by Forest Stewardship Council… We refuse further greenwashing under the FSC logotype.”[3]

S1848 Poaching and Baiting. S1848 will extend poaching practices long deemed unethical, unsporting and unsafe, on forest stewardship lands. That S1085 will create more deer is indisputable fact. That is why Senator Smith has reintroduced last session’s distasteful S2649, which permits killing animals directly over bait, jacklighting, or stunning deer with strong lights, and shooting from vehicles.

Baiting: By large majorities, public disapproves of killing animals “over bait,” a poaching practice by the Division of Fish and Wildlife for deer since the late 1990s, and, ironically, supported by those who decry deer damage to forests. Baiting changes tree species composition and holds back forest regeneration, as it concentrates deer, who continue to feed on natural browse in the area. In eastern deciduous forests, ground nesting birds were less abundant in baiting areas. Baiting concentrates coyotes, raccoons, and opossums near ground nesting birds. Baiting increases car accidents and the spread of wildlife diseases.

Fires top out trees at the (“controlled burn”) blaze near Reynolds

Ranch, Colorado.  March 26, 2012.  AP Photo, Denver Post.

S368 “Prescribed Burning”. Authorities report that burning, a longstanding game management practice and the present rage, releases particulates and pollution that can affect humans with respiratory problems.[4]

“Controlled” fire can and does get out of control. In March 2012, the 3,000-acre wildfire in Colorado resulted in 900 homes evacuated, and one fatality. The fire was caused by a “prescribed burn” the week before that “sprang back to life on a windy day.”[5] At a public meeting, a New Jersey Audubon staffer made the starkly absurd point that if the 3,000-acre fire, caused by a prescribed burn and responsible for the evacuation of 900 homes and a fatality, hadn’t been prescribed burned in the past, the (prescribed burn) fire would “have been worse.”

Teeming with Gun Manufacturers

The TWW national steering committee is teeming with firearms manufacturers, including ATK Ammunition Systems, Remington Arms, Inc., SigArms Corporation, the Archery Trade Association, state game agencies, hunting groups, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy. The latter was the subject of a Washington Post series on its corporate associations. For the full list of participants, please see Teaming with Wildlife National Steering Committee www.aplnj.org/TWWv2.pdf.

TWW refers to firearms trade associations as “nature related businesses.” The co-leader of the New Jersey TWW Coalition, which includes timber interests, is New Jersey Audubon.

In 1931, zoologist William Temple Hornaday, who saved the American buffalo and fur seals from certain extinction, identified the National Association of Audubon Societies, gun manufacturers, and government wildlife regulators as the “Combine” or “Interlocking Directorate” that “savagely” blocked efforts to set bag limits for decimated migratory birds.

The author of a recent book on conservation “hellcat” Rosalie Edge described Edge’s battle against Audubon and “professional conservationists corrupted by trophy hunters,” timber, ranching, developers, manufacturers and government regulators. The Combine decided which lands and animals would be protected or increased based on their own “personal interests and profit motives.” Déjà vu, all over again. With TWW, the Combine is back, controlling wild land, wildlife policy, and public funding nationwide through State Wildlife Action Plans. In fact, the Combine never left.

Susan Russell

Wildlife Policy Specialist

Animal Protection League of New Jersey

League of Humane Voters of New Jersey

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[1] “40 New Jersey Biologists, Ecologists, and Forest Scientists OPPOSED to S1085 ‘Forest Harvest

[2] Chad Hansen, “Getting Burning by Logging: Forest Service Abuse of the National Fire Plan in the Sierra Nevada,” John Muir Project, Earth Island Institute. Undated. 5-7. http://www.landsinfo.org/ecosystem_defense/science_documents/Hanson_undated_b.pdf (accessed 1 June 2012).

[3] FSC-Watch, “Swedish Society for the Conservation of Nature Resigns from FSC Sweden,” 22 June 2010. www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2010/07/11/_Swedish_Society_for (Accessed 1 June 2012).

[4] “Simulation of Air Quality Impacts from Prescribed Fires on an Urban Area,” Environmental Science and Technology, American Chemical Society, 2008. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es071703k  Accessed 1 June 2012).

[5] Associated Press / March 27, 2012. Colorado wildfire: 900 homes evacuated, and one fatality. www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0327/Colorado-wildfire-900-homes-evacuated-and-one-fatality (Accessed 1 June 2012).

Opinion: Logging in N.J. forests would grow deer population

http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2012/05/opinion_logging_in_nj_forests.html

Published: Thursday, May 17, 2012

Times of Trenton guest opinion column

By Susan Russell

The controversial Forest Harvest Bill (S1085), recently rechristened the Forest Stewardship Bill, allows commercial thinning, or logging, in our state forests. The measure raises questions of transparency, coherent policy and the public trust.

In state legislatures, power over public lands, wildlife and funds is concentrated in alarmingly few hands, many of them corporate and public-private partnerships, each washing the other and dominated by the gun trade. Vague claims of “stewardship” and “science” too often serve commercial agendas.

Logging supporters do not disclose the fact that the bill will increase the number of white-tailed deer. Logging and prescribed burns are classic game management methods that stimulate deer breeding for hunting purposes.

The endearing bobwhite quail, whose tenuous numbers are faltering, is another target of the bill. Struggling to survive, this beneficial bird is shot for recreation. Only recently has the Game Council restricted its kill. In 1931, conservationist William Temple Hornaday described the bobwhite as “the most useful, social, trustful, and the most lovable” of birds. In vain, he implored hunters to “spare his life.” In 2012, we are asked to log forests not to protect the birds, in any real sense, but to enable a sharply shrinking minority to keep killing them.

Logging supporters prefer to say that the bill will benefit “non-game” (does nature discriminate?) warblers. Others have observed that warbler protection does not require commercial logging.

Forty scientists who signed a letter against the original legislation noted that commercial thinning of forests would “grow the deer herd even more.” The bill — the result of “three years of stakeholder” meetings — was criticized as damaging and commercial.

Those who stand to benefit from logging our forests are the principal “stakeholders” behind the original bill: timber, hunting, firearms and archery manufacturer front groups; state agencies; conservation groups partnered with all of the above; and private consultants and grant brokers.

Here’s the rub: The self-appointed stakeholders relentlessly pursue deer-killing programs they claim protect “forest systems.” Now they are lobbying for commercial legislation that grows the herd. Proposed amendments that would include Forest Stewardship Council guidelines will not change the fact that logging, or thinning, creates more deer.

The link between cutting trees and deer reproduction is fact. Googling “habitat development” for white-tailed deer will confirm that logging and thinning forests are long-standing game management staples. Mature, contiguous forests do not support large numbers of deer. Their dense canopies prevent the growth of plants that deer like to eat. State game departments create deer breeding range by mowing, logging, burning and planting deer-preferred crops.

Lest there be any doubt, in 1977, the Journal of Wildlife Management reported that “deer herds are being managed with ever-increasing intensity. The primary management plan has been directed at increasing the productivity of the white-tailed deer through habitat manipulation and harvest regulation.”

Nationwide, from 1975 to 1985, millions of acres were logged, burned and defoliated for commercial hunting. The majority of acreage burned and logged, wrote the Department of the Interior, benefited deer by providing food and breeding range.

It was all the more remarkable, then, when, during an April 26 public meeting, the bill’s sponsor — hunter legislative caucus member and Senate Energy and Environment Chairman Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) — would not acknowledge that thinning forests, or logging, creates more deer, and said that there was “disagreement with that premise.” At best, the chairman is ill-advised by those who stand to benefit from more deer.

To the stakeholders, the resulting “farmed” deer are utterly expendable. Partnership-backed legislation S1848, defeated last session, would have permitted killing deer on forest stewardship lands by egregious poaching methods long deemed unethical.

The public disapproves of hunting animals “over bait,” a poaching practice legitimized by the Division of Fish and Wildlife for deer since the late 1990s, and supported, ironically, by those who decry deer damage to forests. Baiting is counterproductive: In multiple studies, baiting changed forest composition of tree species and held back forest regeneration. Why? Bait sites concentrate deer, who continue to feed on natural browse in the area. In eastern deciduous forests, ground nesting birds were less abundant in baiting areas.

Baiting lures and concentrates coyotes, raccoons and opossums near ground nesting birds.

Maximizing deer populations for hunter-clients, widespread baiting, and trapping of the beaver, one of nature’s most industrious agents of forest health, are yet other examples of how unseemly gun trade and government partnerships help cause forest degeneration and profit from the results, and why S1085 should be shelved. Excluded from the stakeholder club is any organization that does not support, or opposes, commercial hunting and trapping. Less than 0.6 percent of New Jersey residents hunt. By hook, or by crook, and even as hunter numbers plummet, the ammunition, timber and gun alliance, which includes

cooperating conservation groups, is bent upon perpetuating not only their power, but the mistakes and attitudes of the past century.

The Public Trust Doctrine establishes government as trustee over natural resources “too important to be owned.” Could have fooled us. As diverse people have commented at hearings, the only missing stakeholder is the public.

Susan Russell is wildlife policy specialist for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey (aplnj.org).

Written Testimony: Presented to the New Jersey Senate Environment and Energy Committee

Susan Russell, Wildlife Policy Specialist

League of Humane Voters of New Jersey, Animal Protection League of New Jersey

January 30, 2012

“You have to watch what they do, not what they say.” (“A clear-cut controversy: Some logging halted after outcry over Mass. forestry mistakes,”  Boston Globe, March 4, 2010, appended)

Thank you for the opportunity to provide written testimony related to S1085, an act to permit commercial timbering on state-owned lands, with certain exemptions.

A disputed tenet of the legislation is that commercial timbering operations will essentially replace or mimic natural and/or historical human disturbance – and prudent, non-commercial stewardship.  Its proponents claim that contract logging is necessary to ensure the continued health and biodiversity of New Jersey’s public forests.

Our state forests should remain off-limits to commercial logging interests.  S 1085 and similar legislation and/or policy in other states coincide with the growing economic value of re-growth stands, and relatively recent national and state commercial-conservation partnerships and coalitions.

Natural disturbances – wind and ice storms – create openings over time. Natural events, augmented if and when necessary through non-commercial stewardship, should suffice.

S1085 sets in stark relief our state’s incoherent white-tailed deer policy (and beaver policy:  beavers create natural forest disturbance, yet are trapped for fur) and commercial-conservation coalitions that too frequently transmute closed arrangements into public policy.

Not least among the legislation’s consequences:  a stimulation of white-tailed deer reproduction and a possible increase in predation on forest-interior birds. New Jersey Audubon, a principal advocate of the legislation, simultaneously works for the systemic destruction of deer and hunter-partner access to protect “forest systems” and forest-interior birds, and classic enhancement of deer breeding range.

The resultant deer are expendable, justify even greater hunter access, and are dispatched under vague, stewardship nostrums. Ethical and humane imperatives remain unaddressed.  On S 1085, New Jersey Audubon writes:

“Deer herbivory [a direct result of commercial timbering promoted in S1085] and invasive species are two of the challenges that will always be a concern in New Jersey but, recognized as such, can be addressed in a quality forest stewardship plan before practice implementation begins.”

Translation:  Last session’s S2649, which would have expanded depredation practices to lands under the Forest Stewardship or Woodland Management Plans.

The practices included poaching and banned marketing hunting practices long considered unethical, unsporting, and unsafe:

New Jersey Senate Bill 2649 permits killing animals at point-blank range over food, with “a firearm or weapon of any kind,” to “kill, destroy, injure, shoot, shoot at, take, wound, or attempt to take, kill, or wound, a deer, or have in possession or control any firearm or other weapon of any kind for such purposes.” Participants may “utilize an illuminating device or devices, including but not limited to a spotlight, flashlight, floodlight, or headlight, whether portable or fixed to a motor vehicle or any other kind of vehicle, to locate and stun deer,” and shoot from vehicles.

The national Teaming with Wildlife (TWW) Steering Committee  includes all facets of the shooting industry, including ATK Ammunition Systems and the Archery Trade Association (“nature related businesses). New Jersey Audubon is the TWW co-director. The New Jersey Forestry Association is a member.

Working with the Legislature, the animal protection community has obtained several landmark wildlife protection laws, among New Jersey’s statutes banning steel-jaw leghold traps and the importation of wild-caught, exotic birds for the pet trade. National and state humane organizations represent the interests of well over 700,000 of New Jersey voters. We appreciate this opportunity to comment on legislation affecting wildlife and wildlands held in trust for all citizens. The chasm between commercial timbering contracts, the potential for abuse,  and bona fide stewardship in state forests is wide. We urge the committee to act accordingly.

Logging Bill Exposes Incoherent Deer Policy and Unseemly Partnerships

With good reason, legislation to allow commercial logging of state lands has divided conservation groups. Cutting within forests is routine game propagation practice to enhance deer range and stimulate reproduction.

Describing the benefits of clear-cutting, authorities note that habitat has a major influence on deer reproduction. Clear-cutting forces earlier breeding. At higher numbers, deer may not be bred until the 2nd or 3rd estrus.[1] As the number of females increases, births decline, because there is less food available per deer.[2] The percentage of fawns and yearlings who breed early depends on their physical development, which is based on food supply. [3]

Conversely, more mature forests mean fewer deer. As of June, 2011, Virginia’s hunters were concerned over a decline in national forest deer. The deer herd and kill had plummeted, especially on national forest land.[4] The understory that was the result of timber harvests and game management had matured, explained state biologists.

Whitetail deer did not spontaneously irrupt; the species was pushed. In 1977, the Journal of Wildlife Management reported that “deer herds are being managed with ever-increasing intensity. The primary management plan has been directed at increasing the productivity of the white-tailed deer through habitat manipulation and harvest regulation” (Mirarchi et al 1977).[5] Far from limiting the herd, commercial hunting served to force peak reproduction.

New Jersey Audubon, which promotes the systemic killing of deer to protect “forest systems,” is the major supporter of a bill that will create more deer -- in state forests. The resulting deer are expendable, and will justify Audubon’s commercial partner’s coveted hunter access to public and private land.

Moreover, the cutting proposed by New Jersey Audubon and its commercial partners, including logging interests, will exacerbate any long-term impact of deer grazing. National experts report that there are particular points in time when the direction and speed of forest succession is sensitive to deer browsing. In the absence of large-scale disturbances the forest canopy is resistant to change despite large amounts of under-story herbivory. (Cross and McShea 2003). Commercial timbering is such a disturbance.

Ornithologists studying the aftermath of Bureau of Land Management forest cuts for deer report that birds associated with mature forests declined.[6] Experts report that forest management for deer “may not hold for other organisms, such as forest interior birds, salamanders and wildflowers.”[7]

With hunter-client numbers plummeting and in pursuit of public cash, the government-firearms manufacturer partnership that has controlled U.S. wildlife policy for a century has ‘partnered” with cooperative conservation groups, primarily Audubon, national and state.

The Teaming with Wildlife Steering Committee is teeming with commercial interests, including the Archery Trade Association, ATK Ammunition Systems, Taurus International (“nature related businesses”). New Jersey Audubon is the group’s New Jersey co-director.

Senator Smith and Audubon also proposed legislation to expand poaching practices long deemed unsporting, unsafe, and unethical -- killing, with any weapon, directly over bait, shooting from cars and trucks --to destroy deer on forest stewardship lands, many managed and leased by hunting clubs to propagate deer. 

Enough with vague “stewardship” nostrums, commercial deals, and hidebound policy that repeats the mistakes of the past. New Jersey’s wild lands and wildlife are held in trust for all of its citizens. The latter are not in on this deal.

---

[1]Voight, D. et al, “Forest Management Guidelines for the Provision of White-tailed Deer Habitat,” Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (Aug. 1997)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Cochran, B. Hunters concerned over decline in national forest deer. Roanoke.com. June 2011.

[5] Mirarchi, R., Scanlon, P., Kirkpatrick, R. Annual Changes in Spermatazoan Production and Associated Organs of the White-tailed Deer. Journal of Wildlife Management. 1977. 92.

[6] Varble, Bill, “Study: Birds flee thinned areas,” Mail Tribune (21 Sept 2003)

[7] McShea, William J. et al, The Science of Overabundance, Smithsonian Institution Press (1997)

NEW JERSEY OPINION; DON'T WAKEN THE LEGHOLD BAN

By SUSAN RUSSELL

Published: April 27, 1986, New York Times

UNTIL recently, public reaction to New Jersey's leghold-trap ban focused on the merits of the statute.

After a decade of bitter confrontation, the Legislature responded to overwhelming public pressure and enacted the strongest law in the nation.

Since Governor Kean signed the bill into law, attention has shifted toward myriad attempts - in the courts, the Legislature and bureaucracy - to systematically dismantle the law, thus permitting fur-trade interests to conduct business as usual. Moreover, the situation has brought to light the disproportionate influence of the minority fur trade in wildlife policies at public expense.

Significantly, recent actions have confirmed alarming activity within the state agency entrusted with protecting wildlife for all citizens. This agency, the Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, openly labors to overturn public mandates and protect the interest of the fur industry.

The Legislature received more mail against leghold traps than on any other issue. The public insistence on P.L. 1984, C. 37, which went into effect last October, had nothing to do with money, taxes or power; rather, it was a manifestation of growing national concern about the private exploitation of public wildlife.

According to the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach Inc., three-quarters of the public firmly opposes killing wildlife for fur. That concern became a potent political force. Housewives, lawyers, teachers, labor leaders and schoolchildren contributed time and money to ban leghold traps. The enactment of the law proved that at least some of the time, when people care deeply enough, they can surmount a commercial lobby that too frequently controls the Legislature and certain bureaucracies.

Citizens followed due process, and the victory should stand.

Instead, last year the New Jersey Fish and Game Council, a politically appointed body of 11 members that represents hunters and trappers and exercises enormous control over the state's wildlife policies, tried to compromise the law by permitting use of so-called padded steel-jaw leghold traps.

Behind this unsuccessful maneuver were the Wildlife Legislative Fund of America, a group comprising the American Fur Industry and the Woodstream Corporation, and the state's Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, which derives 80 percent of its budget, including salaries, from hunting-, trapping- and fishing-license revenues. The division publicly admitted that it tried to legalize legholds - despite a law - based only upon the opinion of the Wildlife Legislative Fund.

This attempt was made after the fur lobby twice failed to get the Legislature to amend the leghold-trap legislation to permit use of ''padded'' traps. Public reaction was quick and loud; the Attorney General wrote the Fish and Game Council that such a move would clearly violate the law.

Having failed, the fur trade sued in Salem County - the heart of trapper country - to overturn the law and gain use of ''padded'' traps and possession of the devices. The trial is to begin this spring.

Represented by the Princeton firm of Jamieson, Moore, Peskin and Spicer, P.C., Friends of Animals has intervened in the case to protect the statute.

Trappers and fur groups are suing the same Fish and Game Council that fought the ban. In effect, they are suing themselves. The council worked with the fur industry to legalize the outlawed trap.

Jim Furlong, a trapper and longtime official of the South Jersey Furtakers, as well as a consort of Woodstream and the American Fur Industry, sits on the council he is suing. The Game Council and the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife are prime witnesses for the trappers' case.

Russell A. Cookingham, director of the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, is listed as the 1985 president of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, an official-sounding lobby organization that represents Woodstream, the American Fur Industry, the commercial National Trappers Association and several munitions makers. Most of the ''case'' for legholds was choreographed by this trade organization, but will be presented in the name of the ''State of New Jersey.''

Division officials, who in the name of the state lobbied against banning leghold traps and who are listed as serving as trappers' witnesses, are themselves commercial trappers who use the leghold for personal gain.

Meanwhile, the same fur trade coalition is trying a rear-guard action in the Legislature. S. 294, sponsored by Senator Wayne Dumont Jr., Republican of the 24th District (parts of Sussex and Warren Counties), would eviscerate the statute by removing the critical ban on possession and permitting hard-core trappers to keep their leghold traps - in some cases, hundreds of devices - for purported ''decorative and collection'' purposes.

Astonishingly, the amendment was ramrodded through the Senate on March 3 and goes to the Assembly, then to Governor Kean.

The bans on possession and sale are the very heart of the statute. Since New Jersey trappers have been shown to flout existing laws banning only ''use'' of the devices, and since trapping is a surreptitious activity impossible to police, only bans on possession and sale are enforceable.

A 1978 report issued by the pro-trapping Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife noted that trappers in Class I and II Counties admitted to breaking the ban in those counties and to using a shocking 12,227 leghold traps, despite the law. The division wrote: ''In Class I and II Counties where longhair (fox, raccoon) furbearers are available in upland areas open to trapping, compliance with the ban on leghold traps is low.''

Despite this, the division saw no reason to increase enforcement attempts. The role of this biased agency in enforcing a law that it holds in contempt is yet another compelling reason necessitating bans on possession.

When there is a commercial market, and the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service states that trapping is strictly commercial, ruthless decimation of public wildlife continues despite laws and requires proscription, such as possession, that are enforceable.

The Fish and Wildlife Service reports that half the wildlife killed in the United States is taken illegally. Top officials of the New Jersey Trappers Association, requesting leghold traps for decorating homes, are on record as repeated violators of ''game'' laws. It is these hard-core trappers who want to retain leghold traps for ''decorative'' purposes.

Yale University's ''Policy Implications of National Study of American Attitudes Toward Animals'' reported:

Trappers seemed quite unconcerned about issues involving the protection and welfare of animals . . . more than any other group, trappers consistently opposed efforts to minimize cruelty to animals or depredations to wildlife and wilderness environments. And

This group seems to exercise little restraint or control in its exploitation of wildlife or natural resources.

State wildlife enforcement officers cannot begin to monitor the placement of an estimated 220,000 traps, 77,000 of which are legholds, set in our private and public woods, meadows, fields, marshes, streams and other waterways.

New Jersey is divided into three wildlife enforcement districts, each with 12 to 14 officers at full strength. One officer, on a 9-to-5 schedule, is responsible for 230 square miles. Aside from enforcing trapping laws, each is assigned about eight other tasks, including water-pollution investigation.

Trapper legislators' justifications for ''possession'' are, as ever, pretextual. Both Senators Dumont and Raymond J. Zane, Democrat of the Third District (Salem County and parts of Cumberland and Gloucester Counties), say that S. 294 is ''only fair'' because P.L. 1984, C. 37 requires ''trappers to have these devices confiscated without compensation.''

As their actions have shown, trappers want not compensation, but to keep the traps to continue making money from pelts illegally obtained. On March 3, Senator Carmen A. Orechio, Democrat of the 30th District (parts of Essex County), challenged Senator Zane to co-sponsor a bill to provide compensation, rather than giving trappers possession of the traps. Senator Zane declined.

Mr. Orechio further pointed out that both the Legislature and humane groups had agreed to compensate trappers, if only to get the traps out of the woods, and that Senator Zane used that amendment as a political maneuver to block passage of the entire bill.

Given such episodes, the Legislature rejected Senator Zane's subsequent attempt to block the entire law via requests for compensation not seriously meant. The fur trade publication ''Fur Age Weekly'' said compensation was ''not really important'' and commended Senator Zane for derailing the bill.

Since enactment of P.L. 1984, C. 37, neither Senator Zane nor Senator Dumont has in any manner tried to legislate compensation. Rather, they seek possession for trappers. Publicly, Mr. Zane declared that Senator Orechio's offered amendements to render ''collected and decorative'' traps inoperable made him ''furious.''

Assemblyman D. Bennett Mazur, Democrat of the 37th District (Bergen County), who sponsored the bill in the lower house, said that S. 294 ''eviscerates'' the law.

And Assemblyman Alan J. Karcher, Democrat of the 19th District (Middlesex County), another original co-sponsor, said that ''granting possession to trappers clearly goes against our original intention; this emasculates the law before it has even had a chance to go into effect.''

S. 294 fools nobody. Yet insiders say that because Mr. Dumont is a Republican, it may pass the Assembly.

It is up to Governor Kean, a vocal and strong supporter of banning the cruelty of leghold traps, to veto S. 294 and other like measures to ''emasculate'' P.L. 1984, C. 37 and permit business as usual.

Perhaps more is at stake than trap jaws cutting into bone. When people work for a law, they have every right to expect it to remain intact and not lose it in back rooms.

The Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife's role as the ''state'' fools no one, either. This part of the administration should not be allowed to sue itself and to aid the fur industry at the expense of the public.

In 1842, the United States Supreme Court ruled that wildlife belonged to all people, the private property of no individual. It is time to ''dismantle'' not the leghold law, but the bureaucracy politically and financially dependent upon the kill of public animals for commerce. The agency should be financed not by exploiters, but by general revenues, forcing, accordingly, accountability to all citizens.

The interests of 7.5 million citizens are being thwarted to serve 2,500 trappers and a handful of out-of-state profiteers.

Our State Government clearly must not continue acting as prime lobbyist for merchants. It is past time the public reclaim its rights to wildlife. Prevalent attitudes against ruthless destruction of wild species for trade should prevail; these animals truly belong to us all.

SUSAN RUSSELL IS VICE PRESIDENT OF FRIENDS OF ANIMALS, A NEPTUNE-BASED ORGANIZATION.