Black Bears Have Started Hunting People in New Jersey — And No One Can Explain Why

New Jersey's own file uses one word for what happened in those woods in 2014. Predatory. The bear was hunting him. On September 21, 2014, five friends walked into the Apshawa Preserve in West Milford, a 576-acre county park about 45 miles from Manhattan. A healthy 300 pound male black bear followed them, and only four of them came out. It became the first documented bear fatality in New Jersey's recorded history, and when the laboratory finished the necropsy, it found nothing wrong with the animal at all. No rabies. No disease. No starvation. No history with people. This one covers the difference between a defensive black bear and a predatory one, why the warning signs everybody was taught do not apply to the second kind, the West Milford garage attack of 2020, the rising home entries across Sussex, Morris, Passaic and Warren counties, and the 110-year study that overturned what most of us were told about which bear is actually dangerous. It also covers the one sentence in the official statement that still has no explanation. Sources: NJDEP Division of Fish and Wildlife, West Milford fatal bear attack file, September 21, 2014. New Jersey Department of Agriculture and East Stroudsburg University necropsy reports. NJDEP Black Bear Management FAQs and Bear Activity Reports. Herrero, Higgins, Cardoza, Hajduk and Smith, Fatal Attacks by American Black Bear on People 1900-2009, Journal of Wildlife Management, 2011.