FLORIDA – In response to what Florida officials have referred to as the state’s “most successful conservation efforts,” the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has begun creating proposals for a potential bear hunt later this year.
As Florida’s population continues to grow, city development has brought people closer and closer to prime bear habitats, which FWC believes can be curbed by authorizing about 187 bears to be hunted in 31 counties divided into four bear management areas, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Those counties would be divided as such:
- North: Baker, Columbia, Hamilton, Suwannee, Union
- Eastern Panhandle: Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Jackson, Jefferson, Liberty, Leon, Wakulla, Washington
- Central: Alachua, Bradford, Clay, Flagler, Lake, Marion, Orange, Putnam, Seminole, Sumter, St. Johns, Volusia
- South: Collier, Hendry, Lee
The concept of a black bear hunt is nothing new for Florida. The FWC says regulated bear hunting occurred in the state in the 1930s and continued until it was closed in 1994. The agency reopened hunting in 2015, and after meeting its quota, closed it again.
However, local animal rights activists are speaking out against the idea, calling it a “trophy hunt.”
“This proposal lacks scientific merit, disregards overwhelming public opposition, and threatens the stability of Florida’s black bear population,” a petition on Change.org reads, adding that a bear hunt is an unnecessary way of controlling the animal’s population because bears already have a natural way of doing so, called “delayed implantation.”
“This is nature’s way of keeping bear populations in check. If food is scarce, female bears will not reproduce every two years but instead every 3-4 years,” the petition reads.
Adam Sugalski, the executive director of OneProtest, a non-profit aimed at creating solutions for animal and environmental issues, recently spoke out adamantly against the idea of a bear hunt.
According to the OneProtest website, Sugalski has led previous coalitions to stop bear hunts, including a successful effort in 2016.
“The FWC even says they have incomplete bear data and the population numbers won’t be finalized until 2029-2030...this to me is a very premature action to actually have a bear hunt when you don’t know the numbers,” Sugalski said while speaking to News4JAX partner, WJCT. “It goes against [FWC’s] conservation, you know, scientific organization, but why are they doing this when they don’t have the numbers?”
He continued to state that bears, which are an umbrella species, are very important to ecosystems and should be “left alone,” while continuing to use the term “trophy hunt” when referring to the potential hunt.
“This is trophy hunting...we don’t need a bunch of people in the woods killings bears for trophy, for bragging rights,” he said.
Black bears are the only species of bear found in Florida, and biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimate that there are a little over 4,000 of them in the state.
The FWC classified the black bear as a Threatened Species from 1974 through 2012, when the species was considered recovered.
A meeting to discuss the proposed hunt will take place at the College of Central Florida on May 21 at 8:30 a.m. at The Ewers Century Center.
Also, FWC is accepting advance comments, which can be submitted using this form, or sent by mail to the FWC Commissioners at 620 South Meridian St., Tallahassee, FL 32399.
