McGreehan ascended to get a better view while Scott followed the other path, down toward a small reservoir. Then the trail split: one route heading upward, the other on a decline. They shared a few nibbles of the sandwich, wrapped the remains in foil, stuffed it into McGreehan’s backpack and set off across the sort of lush terrain that gives the Garden State its name.Īfter following a gently sloping path, wandering into the late afternoon, they encountered a thick tree that had fallen across their trail and, a few yards later, the remnants of a bonfire, with trash and empty cans scattered about. When they pulled into the gravel lot of a trailhead, they encountered no signs warning about the prevalence of bears in an area that some locals referred to as Bear Swamp-only a map of the park. 21, 2014, in McGreehan’s blue Jeep Compass, stopping first at a convenience store to load up with a breakfast sandwich, granola bars and an apple. Scouring the internet, she found Apshawa Preserve, 576 acres in northern Jersey-only a few miles north of where Melillo would set his bait barrel-including a web of loop trails that rank among the state’s most scenic. She was visiting her boyfriend, Owen McGreehan, in Bound Brook, N.J., and yearned for a little outdoors time before the next day’s four-hour bus ride home to Boston. An interaction beset by blood and an anguished cry.įive years before Melillo clutched his bow on that milk crate, Cassie Scott wanted to go for a walk in the woods. But, unquestionably, what happened next was violent. What happened next, opponents of the hunt say, was unsporting and cruel and unnecessary, given just how infrequently bears wield their might against man. What happened next, hunting advocates say, was essential to keeping that state’s nine million residents safe from its estimated 2,500 bears, with whom they cross paths hundreds of times per year. What happened next has occurred more than 4,000 times in New Jersey alone in the past decade. With eyes fixed on the bear’s regular path back from the watering hole, Melillo waited. The bow sat beside him, loaded with an arrow whose sleek, steel tip is promised by its manufacturer to deliver “maximum penetration” into flesh. He walked the same path as always, spritzing the same sweet sprays in a wide circle around the bear’s adopted home, then settled 20 yards from the barrel, on a milk crate topped with a soft pad. In the late afternoon of a clear day, Melillo parked and set off into the woods-still mostly green, though some leaves were crimsoning. Fixated ever since, he today owns a jacket bearing a dozen of the patches that his home state awards for each legally bagged bear. Melillo had grown up hunting deer with his father, and he killed his first bear in 2003. Inside a case in the back of his truck rested the 18-inch Gearhead compound bow he’d spent the past few weeks firing from 20 yards into the rib cage of a bear-shaped target. 14, the first day of New Jersey’s then annual two-week bear hunt (the first week dedicated to bowhunting, the second to rifles), Melillo departed his home in nearby West Milford, hopped into his black Yukon SUV and made the 15-minute trek back to Kinnelon.
0 kommentar(er)
