Florida’s growing bear population will be out of the hunting crosshairs for this year.
But a one-year pause may simply help the state build a better case for a hunt in 2017.
After hours of objections from animal-rights advocates and support from hunters, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted 4-3 against a staff recommendation to hold a hunt in October that could have been smaller — in terms of permits and hunting grounds — than the 2015 event in which 304 bears were killed over two days.
The commission agreed to accept a recommendation for there to be no hunt this year.
“I don’t think it means hunting goes away,” Commission Chairman Brian Yablonski said at the end of a daylong meeting.
He said the delay will allow non-lethal efforts to take hold. Those efforts include expanding the availability of bear-proof trash containers in communities with high incidents of bear-human interactions.
The state agency has about $825,000 this year — due in part to money raised from the 2015 hunt — to match with money from local governments for the non-lethal options.
Commissioner Ron Bergeron, who cast the lone vote against the 2015 hunt, said the one-year delay to gather more data on the bear population in Florida will help the “credibility” of the state agency.
“We went 20 years without a hunt, had one last year,” added Commissioner Bo Rivard, who acknowledged the 2015 hunt wasn’t perfect. “I’m OK with hitting the pause button. Have our staff continue to work on the issue.”
More than 80 people addressed the commission, with the pro-hunt crowd outnumbered nearly 3-to-1 by people asking to postpone or prohibit future hunts.
Commissioner Aliese P. “Liesa” Priddy warned the commission it will only hear the same arguments against a hunt next year.
Opponents, including some who challenged the 2015 hunt in court told commissioners they intended to work against any killing of bears for sport, which they contend will hurt tourism in Florida.
“We’ve had two shootings recently that have given Florida a huge black eye,” said Katrina Shadix of Oviedo before the commission vote. “Do we want to add another controversial bear hunt to our image?”
Newton Cook, a member of The Future of Hunting in Florida, said those who question the state agency’s scientists “are wrong” and simply seeking an excuse to call for a delay or postponement of the hunt. “Thirty states have bear hunting,” Cook said. “This is not rocket science.”
But critics of the hunt spent the day pushing for the commission to approve a delay so more scientific data can be collected or to possibly issue a general prohibition on all future hunts.
“They need to stop this whole thing, do a complete assessment and then go ahead and determine if it’s viable to have a hunt,” said Adam Sugalski of Stop the Florida Bear Hunt.
Thomas Eason, director of the commission’s habitat and species conservation division, said the state’s bear population has made tremendous strides since the 1970s, when there were 300 to 500 black bears in Florida and the animals were placed on the state’s list of threatened species. Bears were removed from the list in 2012.
The call for the hunt came as the number of bears annually killed by vehicles has steadily increased the past quarter century.
There were 243 bears killed by vehicles last year, up from 241 a year earlier. In 1990, the state recorded 33 bears killed by vehicles. In 2000, the number was 109.
Over the same time, the number of phone calls to the agency related to bears has grown from 99 in 2000 to 6,094 last year. The 2015 number marked a drop from the 6,688 calls in 2014.