3 hours ago
3
Wildlife officials in Florida say the slaughter of dozens of black bears during a controversial three-week hunt this month was a success, despite the opposition of protesters who condemned the “heartbreaking, bloody spectacle”.
The Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC) on Tuesday announced that 52 bears were killed between 6 and 28 December, and promised to release a “full harvest report” in the coming months that will provide details about where and how the animals died.
Wildlife groups insisted the commission’s August decision to approve the hunt, the first in Florida for a decade, was grounded in flawed science. They assailed “barbaric” practices including the use of bait traps, archery and dog packs that hunters would be allowed to use.
Kate MacFall, Florida’s state director for Humane World for Animals, pointed to a poll her group commissioned earlier this year showing 81% of the state’s residents were against bear hunting overall, with a greater number opposed to the use of bait and dogs.
“Seeing the photos of trophy hunters gloating over their slaughtered bears has been deeply upsetting for all Floridians who love Florida’s bears and want them protected. This bloody spectacle has been a heartbreaking way for Floridians to enter the holiday season,” she said in a statement.
“To say FWC missed the mark on this might be the understatement of the year, and like the 2015 hunt, it will surely haunt our state for years to come. We’ll never stop fighting to restore protections for our iconic and much-beloved bears.”
FWC leadership said the hunt was needed to manage the state’s population of black bears, which it said had rebounded from several hundred in the 1970s to more than 4,000 today.
“The 2025 black bear hunt, rooted in sound scientific data, was a success. We’re proud to have joined the more than 30 states that manage black bears with regulated hunting,” the commission’s executive director, Roger Young, said in a press release announcing the preliminary results.
“The limited number of permits issued in areas with the largest bear populations and other components of the hunt prioritized a conservative approach that ensures the long-term health of bear populations in Florida, while providing opportunity for hunters.”
The commission issued 172 single-take hunting permits across four of its seven “bear management zones” where ursine population numbers increased the most. The overall tally of 52 bears was far lower than the 2015 hunt, a planned three-week event that was shut down within 48 hours when almost 300 bears, many of them females either pregnant or with cubs, were slaughtered.
Bear hunting is legal in 32 states, but only 17 allow the use of dogs, according to Humane World for Animals. Dog packs were not approved for 2025 in Florida, but will be “phased in” for future years.
“Hunting is an effective tool for managing wildlife populations around the world and a key part of the North American model of wildlife conservation,” George Warthen, the FWC’s chief conservation officer, said in a statement.
“It’s about helping bears succeed over the long term in our state and is a way for us to guide an iconic Florida species into the future, for their benefit and ours.”
Critics, however, say the state’s “war on bears” is based on “bloodlust, not science”, and have highlighted far-fetched claims such as Republican state representative Jason Shoaf’s 2024 assertion that black bears high on crack were breaking into people’s homes and “tearing them apart”.
