FLORIDA – As the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission continues to analyze the state’s first permitted bear hunt in a decade, the agency has started to release more data.
A fact sheet posted Friday showed that all but six of the 172 permits purchased were by Florida residents, and nearly half of the 52 bears killed during the 23-day hunt that started Dec. 6 were female.
Recommended Videos
None of the 24 female bears were reported to be lactating, which is a sign a female bear recently gave birth.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: ‘Science is not there’: Conservationists hold rally outside Florida Capitol pushing for state to stop December bear hunt | Florida’s black bear hunt to kick off Saturday despite numerous efforts to stop it
The quota was said to be based on a formula that sought to reduce the number of females killed.
“All bears harvested met the size requirements of the hunt,” a release from the FWC stated. “No warnings or citations were issued for violations of bear hunting rules.”
The report states that a warning was issued for trespassing in a Wildlife Management Area.
And while the permits were said to be non-transferable, the report notes that one bear was killed by a “guest hunter.”
FWC Executive Director Roger Young said on Wednesday that “by all management measures, the hunt was a success.”
The hunt was held in four regions of the state where an estimated 3,609 bears lived. The report shows that 68 bears were killed in the Apalachicola region west of Tallahassee; 31 in areas west of Jacksonville; 18 in an area north of Orlando; and 55 in the Big Cypress region southwest of Lake Okeechobee.
A bear killed in Collier County weighed 697.4 pounds.
All but three of the bears were killed with a rifle. Two were killed with a shotgun. One death was attributed to a hunter with a bow.
The permits were awarded through a lottery style draw that required $5 per entry. Animal rights groups encouraged supporters to apply to limit the number of bears killed.
The fact sheet states that of the 163,459 applications received, they were submitted by 14,996 individuals.
Long a controversial issue in Florida, supporters say, in part, a hunt could help better manage bear populations as the animals interact with humans. They also point to a voter-approved ballot measure in 2024 that enshrined hunting and fishing rights in the state Constitution.
Opponents question if hunting reduces human-bear interactions and say the state should use non-lethal options to address bear populations.