HILLSBOROUGH: Residents ask for measures to stop hunting shots near homes

Township Committee hears fears following Jan. 25 shot into house

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Parents who said they were scared to let their children play in yards pressed the Township Committee on Tuesday night to do something to stop hunting close to their homes.
   About 35 people were roused to attend by Linda Hoefele, whose home was shot Jan. 25. The bullet came into her Crane Court house above the garage, through a linen closet and fell after hitting a wall in the upstairs bathroom, she said.
   Her mother and youngest child, 5, who was home from school that day, could have been upstairs at the time, she said.
   ”This incident should never happen again,” Ms. Hoefele told the committee, hypothesizing the worst — “my daughter could have been killed.”
   Ms. Hoefele rallied her neighbors to come to the meeting to make an impression on elected leaders.
   Colleen Cascia, who attended with her 6-year-old daughter, Carmela, said she refused to let her daughter play outside. She has lived on Carroll Drive for 10 years, she said, and on many occasions has yelled from her window at hunters too close to her house or even trespassing on her three acres.
   Years ago, she had a bullet come through her dining room window, she said. She carries a photo on the window frame on her cellular phone, ready to show it to anyone. She’s used it to impress her teenage son of the need for responsibility and safety when he goes hunting, she said.
   ”If the Township Committee doesn’t do anything, I’ll go across the street and blow air horns (to scare away deer),” she said.
   Police said Chase Catalano, 27, of Edison, was hunting for deer on private hunt club property in the area of New Center Road and Orchard Drive at about 1:30 p.m.
   Mr. Catalano was charged by state Fish and Wildlife officers with discharge of a firearm without caution while hunting, damaging property while hunting and discharge of a firearm across a public roadway. He was using a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, said Larry Hajna, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.
   One woman on Tuesday night said the township should rethink the size of the buffers around hunting areas.
   ”What good are safety zones when stray bullets and arrows travel farther?” she asked rhetorically.
   Township Committeeman Frank DelCore said he was particularly concerned about the size of the zones and reports of hunters ignoring private property.
   Resident Marilyn Prieto, who said she has children ages 12 and 16, was concerned over their lives — as well as her own.
   ”I urge you to think. One life is too much to lose,” she said.
   James Haba, of East Mountain Road, said the problem is widespread; he lives bordered by extensive open space and parkland that has been leased to private hunting clubs. He said he’s had buckshot rain down on him and almost was assaulted when he confronted hunters in tree stands close to his home.
   ”This is not a society that can accommodate the myth and delusion of hunting,” he said.
   Mayor Carl Suraci said the township had received a letter of apology from the Buck and Birds hunting club to which Mr. Catalano had been a member. (He’s been dismissed from the club, the letter said.) The mayor called the letter “a small token, but didn’t absolve them.”
   Police Chief Paul Kaminsky said he was meeting next week with the hunt club leaders.
   The complaints will be heard in Municipal Court, tentatively March 13. Mr. Hajna said potential penalties are revocation of Mr. Catalano’s hunting and fishing license, restitution to the property owner, a remedial hunter education course and fines.
   The hunting area was not part of the township Wildlife Management Commission’s designated hunting areas, which still supports a 100-percent safety record, said township police.
   Mayor Suraci noted the issue had elements of Second Amendment rights as well as farmers’ property rights.
   One woman said she was told by a hunter he had permission from the farmer who leased the land. She suggested hunters must have permission from the owner, and perhaps the township could regulate anyone who came to hunt in the township.
   Committeeman Doug Tomson said he wanted Township Attorney Arnold Cruz to research if, or how, the township could regulate or prohibit hunting on private land.
   The mayor asked for committee liaisons to the Wildlife Management and Agricultural Advisory committees to report back.