Monday marked the beginning of a New Jersey bear hunt with the intention of thinning the population. Over 5,000 hunters gathered for the 6-day hunt to thin a bear population estimated at 1,600 to 3,200 bears. With an increase in the number of bears, and the encroachment of human development into their habitat, the hunt is designed to prevent bears from coming into developed areas endangering the human population.
Among the hunters are also animal rights groups protesting the hunt and fanning out through the forests to document the hunt and search for wounded bears. All legal challenges having been exhausted, the groups resorted to protesting the weigh station the dead bears are brought to.
The conflict between wild animals and human development into their habitats is a major environmental issue, and one that capitalism is not prepared to deal with. Capitalism, and its constant need to expand and develop, will slowly but surely continue expanding into the habitats of wild animals across the globe.
This conflict is better suited to be solved by socialism. Without a profit system to interfere, the workers can make decision about animal control and human development that allows for both to fit within the ecosystem. While the protestors are trying to stop the hunt itself, this conflict started long before, with the expansion of human development. It will continue after this hunt, because the current social system, capitalism, will not allow for the ecosystem, including the human population, to create a balance.
TC
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