Florida looks at the first black bear hunting in a decade. You can weigh.

For the first time in almost a decade, Florida Wildlife officers are considering a black bear hunt.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission asked its employees to create suggestions for a possible hunting in December when civil servants pointed out to a now careless bear population.

However, the supporters of wild animals fear that a hunting could be misled, especially after a hunting season was canceled in 2015 when hunters killed the allowed bear quota in about 48 hours.

The Wildlife Commission called it “one of the most successful maintenance efforts in Florida” and says that there are more than 4,000 wild black bears compared to several hundred in the 1970s. However, the agency has not completed a population range for about a decade and claims that a study that comes too early pays for individual bears.

The Wildlife Commission closed the bear hunting in Florida in 1994 and opened a short season in 2015, which was to take a week. In view of a higher number of bears killed than expected, the officials closed the nationwide hunt for the second day.

During this hunting in 2015, wildlife officers set quotas for the number of bears that were allowed to kill in four areas in which the hunting was approved, and the state closed two of them at the end of the first day because Jäger killed more bears than the border. In the eastern Panhandle, twice as many dead bears were killed than the permissible permits, the Tampa Bay Times reported at that time.

In total, hunters killed more than 300 bears – and since then there has been no hunting season.

State wildlife experts now say that there are several bears sub -populations that are “big and healthy enough to maintain a hunt” without references to falling population groups in the past ten years. The Commission said that it would deal with earlier hunting regulations and the way other states deal with Bear hunts to create hunting options that can be introduced to the public.

Wildlife Commissioners will hold a virtual meeting on March 13th at 6 p.m. to hear the public thoughts about a possible bear hunting. The agency also collects feedback via e -mail via bearcertets@myfwc.com.

A coalition by Bear Advocacy groups said that she was preparing to oppose hunting, even during the coming March and during the May commission meeting, in which a bear hunting is anticipated for discussion.

Katrina Shadix, managing director of the non -profit Bear Warriors United, said that a Bear hunt would be “wrong” on many levels.

“We have 23 million people in Florida and 4,000 bears. So we know where the population problem is: they are people, ”she said. Although the state has not completed an overflow survey since 2015, Shadix has argued in recent years that the population of the bears has had to advance.

State data show that more than 2,600 bears were killed in Florida between 2014 and 2023.

“Our state wildlife agency should use more protection for the bears and hire more law enforcement officers to protect our already dwindling wildlife populations,” says an interview.

Gary Lester, the Vice President of the Community Relations for the Villages and Governor Ron Desantis in 2022 as a wildlife commissioner, suggested Bear Hunt during a meeting of the Commission in December.

“I will be very concise: I would like to see a proposal for employees for a bear hunting,” said Lester.

Rodney Barreto, a developer who heads the Wildlife Agency, said in response to Lester that commissioners have had internal discussions about bears “hotspots” in the state and whether hunting would be possible in the future.

The Fish & Wildlife Foundation in Florida, which works closely with the state commission, said it would not take a position on certain hunting regulations.

“We trust the committed scientists (the Wildlife Commission) to conduct Florida's wildlife sustainably,” said Michelle Ashton, spokeswoman for the foundation.

“Your decisions are influenced by extensive research and a transparent public process to ensure that guidelines preserve the species and at the same time take into account the input of everyone involved,” she said.

The recent changes to the statutes and the constitution in Florida may have the prerequisites for a future Bear hunt.

In November, Floridians approved a ballot paper that anchored fishing and hunting as the right in the constitution of the state.

Followers of the change said that it was a proactive approach to be ahead of possible future bans for fishing and hunting, while critics feared that this could lead to the introduction of gruesome hunting practices.

Desantis also signed a controversial invoice last year that enabled people to shoot and kill bears in self -defense.

This law came into force in July and allows bears when a person “believed reasonably” that it was necessary to avoid death or serious injuries for themselves, other people or pets as well as considerable houses, according to Bill language.

Desantis' signature came just a few weeks after a more than £ 400 pound of black bear was shot in an apopka man-farm.

Records showed that the animal had a bullet hole in the left lungs. The official cause of death: “Illegal kill.”