Florida bears aren't 'game mammals' to be hunted with dogs
After a crucial vote on Wednesday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is now barreling toward a final decision we feel defies science, disregards public trust and violates the agency's wildlife management plan.
Following a three-hour public hearing in Ocala where more than 160 people spoke for and against bringing back Florida's first bear hunt since 2015 — a hunt so widely condemned it was abruptly shut down — the commission voted 4-1 to advance the proposal, called 'Alternative 2.'
A final vote will be taken Aug. 13-14. If approved, a 23-day regulated hunting season would take place in December.
We ask that at your next commission meeting, please vote to postpone this agenda item until updated science, effective safeguards and meaningful public input are in place.
What we are talking about here is not just a policy disagreement. The new proposed rules the commission has drafted directly contradict Florida's Black Bear Management Plan (BBMP), which the agency carefully established as its bear conservation policy in 2019.
The BBMP, developed with input from scientists, landowners, law enforcement and the public, lays out a clear conservation blueprint. It sets population goals: maintain at least 3,000 adult bears statewide, ensure at least one subpopulation exceeds 1,000 bears, bring all seven subpopulations above 200 and promote genetic connectivity across regions.
Yet the new rules would allow hunts in any of Florida's Bear Management Units with a population estimate over 200 — setting the stage for hunts even if there are just over 1,400 adult bears statewide, that's less than half the BBMP's minimum goal.
However, there's no requirement to verify if any bear population estimates are even current. So FWC is still relying on data that is nearly a decade old and the next population study isn't expected to be complete until 2029 or 2030.
The contradictions don't stop there.
The BBMP calls for meaningful public engagement through Bear Stakeholder and Technical Assistance Groups. Yet, these proposed rules were crafted largely out of public view with no comparable stakeholder process — fundamentally at odds with the agency's stated commitment to transparency and collaboration.
The BBMP also supports private landowners as habitat stewards — not trophy hunt operators.
But the new 'Private Lands Bear Harvest Program' contained in the new rules allows landowners with 5,000 or more acres to obtain up to three bear hunting permits per year. This is a shift in power — from public stewardship to privatized trophy hunting — unsupported by science or precedent.
Even more disturbing is the plan to allow bear hunting with packs of hound dogs. The BBMP discusses dogs only as a deterrent — not as a hunting method. Yet under the proposed new rules, hunters may use packs of up to six hound dogs to chase down bears beginning in 2027. This isn't modern wildlife management — it's barbarism, codified.
Symbolically, the proposed rules refer to black bears as 'game mammals' — a bureaucratic move that strips away the history of the Florida Black Bear as a treasured and iconic part of Florida's unique heritage. After years of being managed under special protection, bears are being rebranded as a recreational hunting resource.
What's most revealing is what's missing.
The proposed rules ignore the real causes of human-bear conflict: sprawl and unsecured garbage. Florida's bears aren't invading subdivisions — subdivisions are invading bear habitat. When food is left in reach — garbage, birdseed, pet food — bears do what any animal would: They take the easy meal.
Southeast Florida Commissioners Chair Rodney Barreto, Albert Maury, Steven Hudson and Gary Nicklaus, you are stewards of the public trust. These rules rely on outdated data, ignore your agency's wildlife management plan and fail to address the true causes of conflict.
Please vote to postpone this agenda item. Anything less will be remembered not as conservation — but as the moment FWC lost its credibility with the Floridians it serves.
James C. Scott is campaign coordinator with Speak Up Wekiva. Chuck O'Neal is president of the organization.
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