Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.
I think your point was perhaps tongue in cheek, but it is a good one. We are called to exercise dominion and stewardship. Hunting is an unavoidable duty in that regard.
No, not really a joke, (I would say the "I love animals, they taste good" was more toungue-in-cheek) it was a quote from the Bible in Genises from God to Noah, it's to prove a point that man has dominion over animals and were placed here for us. NJ was fine with 50 bears, 2,000 is overkill and they need to be thined. There are other aspects to this, more of a religious nature, concerning the activist liberals, regarding man being created in God's image and abortion and how we will do anything to save a bear, spotted owl or humpback whale while allowing the killing 43 million babies since 1973.
