State wildlife commissioners will consider new rules at their May quarterly meeting, with a final vote expected in August.
USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida
- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is considering a proposal to reinstate an annual bear hunt.
- Opponents argue the proposal relies on outdated data and contradicts the FWC’s bear management plan.
- Public hearings and a final vote on the proposal are scheduled for May and August, respectively.
Florida is on the cusp of having an annual and regulated bear hunt that environmentalists and wildlife advocates likened to “barbarism” and say is informed by “outdated data.”
At a December Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) meeting after receiving an update on the commission’s bear management plan, board chair Rodney Barreto told staff to develop a bear hunting option for commissioners to consider.
Five months later, the option is ready for a public hearing. And it comes not long after the first fatal Florida bear attack ever recorded.
A ‘conservative’ plan
The FWC said it was developed with input from four virtual public meetings. Once it was published, a public comment period for the proposal was open for three days – May 14-16.
The 31 pages of rules include a 23-day bear season this December and, starting in 2026, annual bear hunting between the first of October and the end of December.
Commissioners will consider the rules at their May 21-22 quarterly meeting in Ocala, with a final vote expected in August.
Morgan Richardson, the FWC’s director of hunting and game management said the rules create “a conservative, well-regulated hunt” to manage the bear population.
But opponents like James C. Scott of Speak Up for Wildlife said they “are riddled with contradictions and sloppy math.”
Scott has more than a half-dozen objections to the proposal including the FWC reliance on data that is at least a decade old to decide whether the bear population is healthy enough to sustain a hunt.
“It is outdated data. This proposal was advanced and inspired by the appointees on the commission, not the scientists, not the agency staff,” Scott said.
The FWC’s Bear Management Coordinator Mike Orlando said the agency is relying on figures from 2015, which he characterizes as “conservative.” “We don’t detect any decreasing (numbers statewide),” Orlando told the Naples Daily News.
Get the Daily Briefing newsletter in your inbox.
Start your day with the morning’s top news
Delivery: DailyYour Email
The Florida black bear, a distinct subspecies of the American black bear, was listed as a threatened species as recently as 2012; the population had dwindled to about 500 in the mid-1970s and has rebounded to an estimated 4,000 today.
Florida ended an annual bear hunt in 1994.
A week-long hunt was attempted in 2015 but was closed after two days when hunters had killed 300 of the 320 bears allotted for harvest.
$100 permit for three-week season
The proposal that will be considered in Ocala divides the state into seven “Bear Management Units” and declares any area with more than 200 bears a “Bear Harvest Zone” – there is no cap on how many bears can be taken from one BMU.
Hunting permits would be issued through a random drawing and cost $100 for a Florida resident and $300 for anyone else; 187 permits would be issued this year.
Exposing the Big Game 