The number killed on Monday is more than 40 percent of last year's total harvest
NEWTON -- The first day of an extended bear hunt in New Jersey killed 206 bears -- more than 40 percent of the total bears killed during the entire 2015 hunting season, according to updated numbers released Tuesday morning.
The most bears were killed in Sussex County with 104, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Forty-one were killed in Morris County, 36 in Warren County, 19 in Passaic County, 5 in Hunterdon County and 1 in Bergen County.
The DEP had initially said the first day of the hunt recorded 146 bears killed as of 7 p.m. Monday. DEP spokesman Robert Geist updated the total to 206 after another 60 bears were brought to check stations later in the evening. In 2015, a total of 510 bears were killed.
Geist said the largest bear brought into the Whittingham Wildlife Station in Sussex County was a 472-pound male. Information on the largest bears recorded at other weigh-in stations wasn't available.
The 2016 bear hunt in New Jersey marks the first time in decades that hunters in the state are permitted to kill bears using bow and arrows. The bow and arrow season runs until Wednesday.
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From Thursday to Saturday, hunters may use bow and arrows as well as muzzleloaders to kill bears, according to the DEP.
"We're the last state that holds a bear hunt to incorporate bow and arrows into it," Geist said. "All of the other states have a bow component. The last time we used it was in the late 1960s or early 1970s."
The first bear killed on Monday was a 104-pound female in Sussex County.
Geist cited increased human and bear interaction as the reason for the extended hunt, which was scheduled for October because of more favorable weather conditions.
Five bear hunting zones are open to hunting in Bergen, Hunterdon, Mercer, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties. The DEP sold 7,664 permits for the first week of the bear hunt compared to the 8,799 permits sold for the 2015 season.
Hunters will have to apply for new permits when the firearm-only season takes place from Dec. 5 to Dec. 10.
The DEP has set a maximum number for the bear hunt based on the total number of bears tagged by state wildlife officials in the current year. In 2016, 197 bears have been tagged so far by DEP. In the first day, 16 tagged bears were killed by hunters. If the number of bears harvested reaches 30 percent of bears tagged in 2016, about 59 bears, the hunt would end early.
More information on the bear hunt is available on the DEP's bear hunting season website.
Reporting by Dave Hutchinson was used in this article.
Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.