Hardyston - In a brief confrontation last Thursday, June 29, a young, female black bear cuffed and scratched Crystal Springs golf course groundskeeper George Potts of Vernon as he was replacing a cup on one of the greens. Following the incident, N. J. Division of Fish and Wildlife officials found and killed the 150-pound bear. The body will be tested for rabies and other diseases. State regulations require the destruction of bears deemed dangerous. Carole Huettig, Crystal Springs’ vice president for sales and marketing, said Potts had continued working following the incident. Huettig confirmed that some golfers have reported seeing bears from time to time on the golf course, but this is the first time such an incident had occurred at Crystal Springs and the first attack by a bear on a human reported this year anywhere in the area. Potts was not immediately available for comment, and Crystal Springs officials said that he had been refusing all requests for interviews. Bear Education and Resource Group (B.E.A.R.) member David Stewart said that he could see no reason for the bear to have been destroyed, when it could have been tranquilized and released into Wawayanda after biologists took the necessary blood samples to determine the state of the animal’s health. “I am truly sorry for any injuries sustained by George, which were apparently minor, but I am concerned for any cubs left motherless by her killing,” Stewart said. “Newspaper articles did in fact report sightings of her with cubs previously, and now what becomes of the cubs?” Hardyston Police Chief Keith Armstrong said that his department was not called, and he referred all questions to the N. J. Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, which could not be reached as a result of the temporary state government shut-down. State records show that reports of bear sightings and incidents appear to have decreased about 30 percent in 2006 as compared with the same time span in 2005. Reports of “category 1 complaints,” that is, complaints of dangerous interactions between humans and bears, are down 36 percent. Statewide, there were a total of 1,104 complaints about bears in 2005, up from 756 the previous year. Stewart says that although state officials attribute the decrease in bear incidents to the December 2005 bear hunt, in which hunters killed 297 bears, including 89 in Wawayanda State Park, he and other B.E.A.R. group members disagree. They believe the reduction is a result of abundant natural food sources brought about by the abnormally cool and wet spring, the efforts of the public to manage their trash (more than 4,000 bear-resistant cans sold or distributed locally thus far) and the public finally being educated on what to do if in the presence of a bear. In Vernon last June 7, a township police officer shot and killed a large bear cub that, with its mother and another cub, had broken into a Barry Lakes home. The previous month, a mother bear with cubs had killed two small dogs in Highland Lakes. Last July 13, a bear slightly bit an Appalachian Trail camper who was sleeping in a grassy meadow near the Mashipacong Shelter in the southeast corner of the park not far from the Wantage border. While a fellow camper with a camcorder continued to film, the young bear cautiously approached the sleeping man, and dragged the corner of the sleeping bag with her teeth. When the camper sat up, the bear fled. Two days later, a state biologist trapped and killed a 142-pound, 5-year-old female bear identified as the bear that attacked the camper.