Florida starts selling bear hunt permits, despite challenge

Officials will allow almost 300 bears to be killed in 4 designated areas around the state.

Florida’s wildlife management commission on Monday started selling permits for bear hunting for the first time in two decades, despite a legal challenge to the hunt.

Amendment 5, which was promulgated in 1998, stipulates that it shall be the policy of the state to make adequate provisions for the conservation and protection of natural resources.

This will be the first bear hunt in the state in more than two decades.

“We welcome today’s lawsuit challenging the Wildlife Commission’s unconstitutional, unnecessary, and immoral black bear hunt”, said Sierra Club’s Florida Staff Director, Frank Jackalone.

The complaint says the commission failed to show scientific evidence that hunting will reduce interactions with humans, or that the bear population can sustain the hunt.

Hunters would be limited to one bear per person, and the killing of cubs or bears under 100 pounds would be prohibited, according to the commission’s guidelines.

In June, FWC passed the final rules to establish a bear hunting season. The complaint cites “a dearth of hard data regarding the actual current population and their rate of successful reproduction coupled with mounting threats from habitat fragmentation and degradation and mortality due to collisions with motor vehicles”.