Might the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) approve a hunt on Florida’s black bear population next year?

That idea is on the table following an update by FWC staffers on the agency’s Florida Black Bear Management Plan at a meeting earlier this week in Lakeland.

Michael Orlando, bear management coordinator in the division of Habitat Species Conservation with FWC, said at the meeting that the population estimate of black bears in Florida going back to 2015 was just over 4,000. He added that “almost 300 bears are killed by vehicles yearly, and on average, one person per year is injured by a bear.”

The last black bear hunt in Florida took place in 2015. It was shut down at the end of just its second day after nearly 300 bears had been killed.

Speaking to commissioners this week, Kate MacFall, Florida state director for The Humane Society, said she remembers when that last bear hunt took place, and says the commission should beware of the fallout.

“It created a great deal of negative PR, which gave a lot of us heartburn for the FWC, and the agency lost some public trust. And most importantly, black bear hunting is wildly unpopular among the majority of Floridians,” she said.

A January 2022 national survey conducted on behalf of The Humane Society by the Remington Research Group found that 76% of “likely 2022 general election voters” opposed the “trophy hunting” of black bears.

Pinellas County Democratic state Rep. Lindsay Cross also disapproves of the notion of the agency approving a new bear hunt.

“The proposal by the FWC earlier this week by the commission to look at having a hunt of black bears I believe is going to be wildly unpopular with the people of Florida,” Cross said on WMNF-88.5 FM in Tampa on Friday morning.

“And I don’t think that the science will bear it out, and that’s the job of FWC is to look at what the science is telling them: What is the population? What should the population be in Florida based on the conservation and accessible lands that they have right now. And if we’re not at those numbers, there’s no way that they should be allowing a hunt.”

Cross, an environmental scientist and a former official with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Conservation Voters, went against environmental groups such as the Florida Sierra Club in supporting Amendment 2 on the November ballot, which enshrined the right to hunt and fish in the Florida Constitution and was approved by 67% of the electorate.

“The idea behind having a right to hunt and fish is to continue to be able to give people access to the resources and to do things that help to support a broader conservation mission, but killing animals for trophy hunting in a population that may already be strained is not consistent with that,” she said.

Cross, re-elected last month to a second term in the Florida House in her District 60 seat, which encompasses St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park, said she intends to focus on hurricane recovery, environmental protection, and support for public safety during the 2025 legislative session.

“Last year I sponsored a bill to expand the My Safe Florida Home program to not just be for wind mitigation but to expand into flood mitigation, and I think that it’s still an important and relevant bill that we provide some support for homeowners to make proactive improvements to their properties, to reduce their risk of flooding,” she said.

Florida Democrats remain in super-minority status in the state House of Representatives, and they lost another member this week when Hillsborough County Rep. Susan Valdes stunned the political world by announcing she was changing her party registration to Republican, despite having just being re-elected as a Democrat last month and losing a bid earlier this month to chair the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee.

Cross calls the move “disingenuous.”

“Susan has been part of the community and there are people on both sides of the aisle that voted for her,” she said.

“But they voted for a person that they believed was consistent with the Democratic Party. And there are some very fundamental differences between the Republican and the Democratic parties. And so, to say, ‘Oh, I got elected as a Democrat, but I’ve got two years, and I want to get a little bit more done’ — I think first and foremost when you enter the political process you need to be clear about who you are and what your values are. Communicate that to the voters and then vote in a way that’s consistent with that.”

Full story at Florida Phoenix