Keep Florida’s bears safe from hunters today and in the future!
November 11th, 2011 by admin
This week the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) released a new draft management plan for the Florida black bear. The good news is that lifting the ban on bear hunting in Florida is not proposed in the plan (bear hunting has been prohibited statewide since 1994). The bad news is that bears may only remain safe from hunter’s bullets for another four years. According to the plan, if bear populations continue to grow, the FWC could consider allowing hunting in 2015. The headline of an article in the St. Petersburg Times summarized the plan this way, “State agency’s plan for growing black bear population cracks door open for hunts.” The Associated Press said the plan “doesn’t completely take hunting off the table.”
The FWC is accepting public comment on the draft management plan at four workshops- in Bristol (Nov. 22), Naples (Nov. 29), Deland (Dec. 6), and Gainesville (Dec. 13). If you can’t attend a workshop you can learn more about the plan and submit comments online at MyFWC.com/Bear. Tell the FWC to keep black bears protected as a threatened species, and demand that trophy hunting of bears never resume.