Florida wildlife commissioners voted unanimously (5-0) Wednesday morning to reinstate a black bear hunt and approve the final rules for the upcoming hunting season this winter. That regulated hunt will take place over 23 days in December, and it will mark the first Florida black bear season in a decade.
The long-term future of black bear hunting in Florida remains uncertain, however. An advocacy group known as Bear Warriors United filed a related lawsuit against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Tuesday night, less than 24 hours before the FWC commission meeting was scheduled to take place in Havana. The group is arguing in its suit that FWC “improperly delisted the bears in 2012,” and part of their intention is to stop future bear hunts from happening, according to WFSU.
Wednesday’s approval vote was expected, as commissioners gave their preliminary thumbs up for the state’s black bear hunt in May. But the move to re-open black bear hunting in Florida has been mired in controversy, even though state biologists say black bear populations are large and healthy enough to sustain a hunt. Those populations have grown across the board since the last regulated hunt was held in 2015, according to FWC, and this has led to increased human-bear conflicts in some places — including Collier County, where the state saw its first-ever fatal black bear attack in May.
Tuesday night’s eleventh-hour lawsuit is just the latest example of the lengths that anti-hunting groups and wildlife activist groups have taken to stop the hunt.
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USA Today reports that at least a dozen of these groups have organized protests in recent weeks, and some of them bused in members from major cities so they could speak out during the commission meeting that took place Aug. 13 in Havana. That meeting included more than two and a half hours of public testimony, including from representatives of Bear Warriors United.
The commission’s unanimous vote solidifies the rules surrounding the 23-day 2025 black bear season that is slated to begin Dec. 6 and end on Dec. 28. FWC will hold a lottery for the 187 available permits, which will allow each hunter to harvest one bear from one of the state’s four bear management units. There are also harvest caps for each of the BMU’s. Permits will cost $100 for residents and $300 for non-residents (with only 10 percent of the available permits going to non-residents.)
Black bear hunters will be allowed to use both archery gear and firearms — including rifles, pistols, shotguns, and muzzleloaders — and they have to follow specific rules around tagging and harvest reporting. Click here for a full look at the regs that were approved by commissioners Wednesday.
Wednesday’s vote also lays the groundwork for future bear-hunting seasons if certain conditions are met. This includes population baselines that need to be maintained in specific bear management units for regulated hunting to continue. The FWC’s current plan includes a phased approach for allowing dogs to be used to take bears, which was one of the topics brought up during the recent commission meeting in Havana.
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