Florida’s Black Bear Hunt Controversy

By Wylie Saviello

It’s been a decade since the last time Florida permitted a black bear hunt, but that all changed this year.

In August, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) officially approved a set of proposed rules for bear hunting, thereby re-opening regulated annual bear hunting in the state of Florida. 

The decision on the hunt has turned into a major controversy between hunters excited for the opportunity and conservation groups advocating for animal rights. 

“The Sierra Club, as with other environmental advocacy groups, is opposed to bear hunting, especially as proposed by the state of Florida,” said Logan Cross, chair of the Sierra Club of Northeast Florida. 

The Sierra Club is a grassroots national environmental organization dedicated to enjoying, exploring and protecting the planet through environmental education, activities and lobbying for pro-environmental policy and legislation. 

“As someone who was previously a hunter, there’s a place for hunting,” Cross said. “This [bear hunt] was an instance where hunting seemed to be more of a venture for trophy hunting and maybe a way of generating revenue for the state than it was to really serve a purpose in wildlife population control.” 

Not only did the Sierra Club take a stand against the FWC’s decision to reopen the hunt, but it also encouraged Florida residents to purchase bear tag lottery entries during the application period and then not use any drawn tags to reduce how many bears will be harvested this year between Dec. 6 through Dec. 28. 

“Growing up being around hunters, some of them are very wildlife conservation minded in what they do,” Cross said. “For others, it’s merely trophy hunting.” 

While there is strong opposition to bear hunting, Florida hunters are looking forward to the long-awaited opportunities that this December will bring. 

“I think re-opening Florida’s bear hunting season is a great opportunity to revive a missing piece of Florida’s hunting culture and history,” said Bronc Rice, a native Floridian and committed hunter living in Jacksonville who runs bear hunting Facebook groups for both Georgia and Florida. “It opens an absolutely wonderful resource back up for outdoorsmen and women to make use of.” 

The FWC made the decision as a way to provide access to the resources of black bears and manage their population. Florida’s black bear population was at a meager level of several hundred in the 1970’s but is now over 4,000, proving to be one of Florida’s most successful conservation efforts, according to the FWC. 

This year’s hunt is far more regulated than the last hunt in 2015, when the FWC had to close the hunt early because too many bears were harvested. The FWC describes this year’s hunt as a more conservative approach. 

Originally, 187 bear permits were to be issued, but after the FWC’s September data reflected a significant decline in one subpopulation, the number of permits issued was lowered to 172. St. John’s County will be part of the hunt, as it falls into the Central Bear Hunting Zone (BHZ). 

The number of permits issued this year is equal to the maximum number of female bears that could be removed without reducing the population in each bear management unit (BMU), and it is highly unlikely that the bears harvested each year would all be female and that hunters would have a 100% success rate. 

Rice hunts all kinds of animals, sourcing a lot of his food from the wild animals he harvests. Holding a deep fascination and respect for bears, Rice appreciates the past opportunities he’s had to hunt bears in Georgia. 

“For me, the drive to hunt and the drive to be in the wild places that hunting takes you to is pretty innate,” Rice said. “It feels a lot more natural and right for me to be close to the land than it does to go work a job 9-5 every day.” 

While he didn’t draw a tag for this year’s hunt, Rice is excited for the reintroduction of Florida’s annual bear hunt and to see the experiences and successes of fellow hunters. 

“When you’re trying to purposefully and consistently put yourself in close proximity to an animal in its habitat on its own terms, your understanding, respect and admiration for that animal grows exponentially,” Rice said. “And then you might ask, if that’s the case, why do I kill them? They’re really good to eat honestly.” 

Rice connects his own hunting and lifestyle to the roots and long history of bear hunting in North America, countering the notion of those who say that bear hunting is merely trophy hunting because the meat is inedible. 

“It is a beautiful rich, red meat. It’s not dissimilar to beef, and when handled correctly, it’s perfectly safe to eat,” Rice said. “The bear I harvested last year fed over a dozen people, and I still have a good bit left in my freezer. Myself and the hunters I know absolutely make use of every part of the animal… people have been making use of [bears] as a food resource for as long as people and bears have shared land.” 

A key point of controversy is the FWC’s scientific data and evidence, or potential lack thereof, used to justify approving the hunt. Several animal rights and conservation groups are against the FWC’s approval process. 

In September, the conservation group Bear Warriors United filed a lawsuit against the FWC for using obsolete bear population data to approve the hunt. The lawsuit claims that the FWC’s decision to allow the hunt is not backed by sufficient scientific data and population management tools. 

The lawsuit also argues that approving the hunt contradicts the FWC’s own data from their 2019 Bear Management Plan and maintains that this year’s hunt will negatively impact and harm the black bear population in Florida. 

“[The FWC’s justifications] are pretty weak,” Cross said. “They try to make it more palatable by selling it as a wildlife management technique to keep the population at a proper level, when really the driving force behind it is in large part, trophy hunting, and there’s also the hope that it will bring in some revenue.” 

BearDefenders.org said that the FWC ignored their own bear biologist’s conclusion that a hunt was not necessary and disregarded the public’s opposition to the hunt. This group criticizes the FWC’s August meeting where the hunt was approved, calling it a “scripted performance” because only five commissioners were present for the meeting. 

Hunters, however, are ready to take advantage of the anticipated opportunities that the FWC’s decision presents. Rice said that a regulated bear hunt will give the bears more room in their landscape to develop and increase their access to resources by reducing their competition, hopefully also reducing some bears searching for new resources near humans. 

“I’m looking forward to seeing the return of a hunt for a species which has historically declined but has rebounded in spectacular fashion,” Rice said. “A revival of that missing part of our southern hunting culture in the face of such a large and loud movement of opposition to who we are and how we live,”

Wanting to maintain a healthy bear population is what makes the wild Florida he knows and loves. Rice agrees with the FWC’s conservative approach to the regulations. He supports the method of limiting the number of permits to the maximum number of female bears that can be harvested that would result in 0% population growth for that particular year. 

“In our case, we think that there’s good grounds for using methods other than the one the FWC has opted to use,” Cross said. “Wildlife populations can get to a point where they probably do need reduction, but this is one of those instances where the grounds for it is pretty weak.” 

The true purpose of the hunt is not the same for everyone, further contributing to the overall controversy. 

“The idea here is not to reduce numbers. The idea here is to open up an opportunity with a resource that is recovered enough that people can make use of that opportunity,” Rice said. 

Cross argues that hunting bears in Florida as a wildlife management tool is not currently well-supported enough by science and is curious to see the findings of the lawsuit against the FWC. He says that human development on or near wild land is the cause of many human-bear interactions and that if people want to live near wild areas, they must adapt to living in proximity to wildlife and protect it rather than kill it. 

“Although I may not agree with [the opposition] or what their movement stands for, I can recognize and respect their passion for Florida’s bears and other wildlife,” Rice said. “I think that if they took the time to get to know myself or other hunters beyond the fact that we harvest and eat game, our views and admiration of wild animals and wild places would be more similar than they realize.”