A target was placed on at least 320 black bears Wednesday as the once-threatened species will be hunted across Florida next month for the first time in more than two decades.
A split Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved quota numbers that represent about 10 percent of the bear population in four regions of the state — there are seven regions — where the hunt will be allowed. Commission staff called the regional and overall quota numbers “conservative.”
Commissioners, meeting in Fort Lauderdale, also gave support Wednesday to a position paper on the Florida panther population. Some panther advocates argued the commission’s move is a step toward allowing the endangered animals to eventually be hunted like bears.
The bear hunt, approved by the commission in June and set to start Oct. 24, will last two to seven days. While the hunt is supposed to end in each region once the preset quotas are reached, hunters are guaranteed a minimum of two days of pursuing bears.
Commissioner Robert Spottswood said he’d like to give the agency’s executive director authority to close the hunt after the first day if the quotas are reached, but he failed to get support from the full commission.
“Why not manage the program so you can’t exceed the objective?” Spottswood said.
Commissioner Ron Bergeron, a hunter who cast the lone vote against the hunt in June because of what he said was a need to gather more data on the number of bears, also voted against approving the quotas.
Diane Eggeman, director of the commission’s Division of Hunting and Game Management, said that while the number of bears killed could exceed the quota numbers in each of the four regions, there will not be an “over-harvesting,” based on examples from others states that allow bear hunts.
Opponents said the commission was mismanaging the hunt, with an unlimited hunt for the first two days, and warned of a pending bear “blood bath.”
Lee Cook, a wetlands biologist, questioned assurances that there won’t be over-harvesting, as the state has sold 1,948 bear hunting permits — as of Tuesday — at a cost of $100 for Floridians and $300 for non-Floridians.
“You have put us on track to go over the quota in the first two days,” Cook said. “That, combined with the nuisance bear kills and the car kills, could put us right back on the endangered species list, which we all worked so hard to get them off.”
Black bears were placed on the state’s threatened list in 1974, when there were between 300 and 500 across Florida. At the time, hunting black bears was limited to three counties. In 1994, the hunting season was closed.
This year’s hunt is intended to help the state achieve a 20 percent reduction in the bear population in each region. The 20 percent figure includes the number of bears that die naturally, are hit and killed by cars and are captured and killed by wildlife officers due to conflicts.
According to the latest figures, there are an estimated 1,300 bears in the Central region, which includes the St. Johns River watershed to the Ocala National Forest, and 550 bears in the North region, which goes from Jacksonville west to Hamilton and Suwannee counties. In each region, the harvest target is 100 bears.
The bear quota is 40 in an eastern Panhandle region, which includes the northwestern Big Bend area to west of Apalachicola Bay. In a South region, which includes Broward, Collier, Hendry, Lee, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties, the quota number is 80. The South region excludes the Big Cypress National Preserve.