A black bear was tranquilized and removed from the campus of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) in Ewing last Thursday.

Ewing police were alerted to the bear by a phone call shortly before 12:30 p.m. The animal had been seen near Hollowbrook Drive and Green Lane close by the campus. Since semester classes are over, only a small number of students were on campus. Nonetheless, a text and email alert was sent out to students, faculty, and staff.

News of the sighting was quickly posted on the Ewing Police Department’s website with the warning not to go near the bear and to call 911 if necessary. Later, the website posted news that the bear had been found and that state Wildlife officials would be “locating it far away from here.”

The bear had climbed a tree when personnel from the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife arrived. The animal was tranquilized around 3:15 p.m.

Larry Ragonese, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Protection, said Friday that the approximately 150-pound male bear is thought to have been about two years old. Unlike the bear that has been sighted on several occasions around Princeton, this one did not have any ear tags. Ear tags denote that the bear has at some time been handled by Fish and Wildlife Management.

The bear was removed by Fish and Wildlife Management to the nearest Wildlife Management Area, in this instance to the Alexauken Creek Wildlife Management Area in northeast Hunterdon County.

Since this bear did not have an ear tag, it is presumed not to be the same animal that has been in the Princeton area and was last seen on June 17, according to Princeton Animal Control Officer Mark Johnson.

Since the 1980s the State’s black bear population has been increasing and expanding southward and eastward from forested northwestern New Jersey. There are now confirmed bear sightings in all 21 of New Jersey’s counties. Michelle Smith of the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Management, who presented a June 17 workshop on bears at Witherspoon Hall, described the Division’s approach to managing New Jersey’s black bear population as fostering coexistence between people and bears.

In recent years, the state’s black bear population has been thinned by hunting via state-sponsored hunts. In 2011, 469 bears were killed and a record 592 were taken during the 2010 hunt. In 2012, several large bears were “harvested.” A 702-pound male was killed in Mansfield and another male, killed in Frelinghuysen Township, weighed in at 686 pounds after being gutted.

Bear hunting is legal in New Jersey in designated areas during the same period as the Six-day Firearm Deer Season (December 9 through December 14, 2013). Participants are required to have a Black Bear Hunting Area Permit for the area(s) they hunt in and a current Firearm or All-around hunting license.

There are four bear hunting areas in New Jersey, in Sussex, Warren, Morris, and Passaic Counties. Hunters are limited to one black bear per hunter for the season. More information is available on the DEP website: www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/bearseason.

Report black bear damage or nuisance behavior to your local police department and/or the state’s Department of Environmental Protection’s 24-hour, toll-free hotline at 1-877-WARN DEP (1-877-927-6337). And remember: NEVER FEED BEARS. Anyone who feeds bears could face a penalty of up to $1,000 for each offense. For more information, visit: www.njfishandwildlife.com/bearfacts.