WUFT | By News Service of Florida
Published May 19, 2025 at 11:56 AM EDT
State wildlife officials next week will hear a proposal to create an annual “limited-entry” black bear hunt, with a December hunting period the first in more than a decade.
A summary of the proposal was posted online Wednesday in advance of a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meeting next week at the College of Central Florida in Ocala.
“Managing (bear) population growth is important to balance species numbers with suitable habitat and maintain a healthy population,” according to the summary by Hunting and Game Management Director Morgan Richardson.
The proposal would allow the first hunt since October 2015 to run from the first Saturday in December through the last Sunday in December, with future hunts held each year between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31. In 2015, 304 bears were killed in two days after permits were distributed to anyone who paid.
The new proposal includes issuing permits through a random draw. The number of permits would be based on factors such as female bear survival and mortality data that would include prior year “hunting success rates.”
Hunting would be allowed within what are known as “bear management units” that have at least 200 bears.
Bear hunting has long been a controversial issue in Florida.
Supporters say, in part, a hunt could help better manage bear populations as the animals interact with humans. They also point to a voter-approved ballot measure in November that enshrined hunting and fishing rights in the state Constitution.
Opponents have argued that hunting doesn’t reduce human-bear interactions and say the state should use non-lethal options to address bear populations.
They say unsecured trash continues to be a lure for bears on residential and commercial properties.
The commission on Friday confirmed an 89-year old Collier County man was the first recorded fatal victim of a bear attack in Florida. The state has recorded 42 incidents since the 1970s of wild bears making physical contact with people.
Exposing the Big Game 
Imagine if the tables were turned and humans were hunted to manage our populationsWe are truly the most overpopulated species abd wr do nothing to curb our destruction. But continue to hunt torture abd threaten every other speciesIt’s sickening Sent from my iPhone
I think that was the original intent of “Predator”. In recent years it seems that message has been lost in translation.
I always thought the Yautja were the equivalent of space rednecks.
Waltz onto an alien world to hunt the creatures there, aliens that are just minding their own business and aren’t a remote threat to them
Think they’re sporting when people because they have a code of ethics
Any hunter that breaks this code is shunned and not considered one of their species
Use advanced tech against creatures that stand no chance against them to fill their trophy room
They introduce species to hunt, regardless of the potential catastrophic ecological impact
Their entire culture is based on what they kill, how they kill it and how many trophies they’ve acquired
They kidnap and dump people into hunting preserves to be killed for amusement
Use devices to incapacitate or outright kill their victims, often slowly
Use cloaking technology to avoid detection
Lure in victims with the cries of their species
They use trained animals to hunt down and rip apart penned in targets
They leave skinned bodies as decorations
They kill someone if they’re armed or feel remotely threatened
You’re not considered an adult until you kill something in their culture
And yet somehow the modern movies have the nerve to think that these are a misunderstood alien species that are not as bad as they appear and even should be considered noble from a certain perspective. Yeah… tell that to the mountain of skulls from the hundreds of victims who were just minding their own business squid face has in his trophy room.
Exactly right. Sickening