TALLAHASSEE --- A conservation group has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission from holding the state’s first bear hunt in a decade.
Bear Warriors United filed the 15-page lawsuit Wednesday in Leon County circuit court, contending the commission violated several legal requirements, including approving a hunt using “obsolete” bear population numbers. The 23-day hunt, approved by the commission last month, is scheduled to start Dec. 6.
Bear Warriors United cited what is known as a state “bear management plan” and the commission’s approval for hunters to kill up to 187 bears during the period.
“The FWC’s (Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s) action permitting the black bear hunt directly contradicts the 2019 bear management plan and results in the FWC flying blind as to the black bear population in making decisions,” the lawsuit said.
Bear Warriors United also argued killing “187 bears will cause imminent and irreparable harm to the Florida black bear species because the FWC’s decision is not grounded on scientific wildlife management or current Florida black bear populations.”
Commission spokeswoman Shannon Knowles said in an email that the agency doesn’t comment on active litigation.
Bear hunting has long been controversial in Florida, with the last hunt held in 2015.
When the commission approved this year’s hunt on Aug. 13 before an overflow crowd in Gadsden County, commissioner Gary Lester said the agency’s staff members brought forward “good, solid science for us to follow.”
Before the hunt was approved, George Warthen, the commission’s chief conservation officer, described the plan as an additional method to manage bears as they coexist with humans.
Bear Warriors United initially filed a challenge to this year’s hunt at the state Division of Administrative Hearings. However, it withdrew the request after the commission argued that such rule challenges may only be filed in circuit court. While challenges to agency rules generally go through the Division of Administrative Hearings, the commission said it is different from many state agencies because it is created in the Florida Constitution.
The commission last week started accepting applications for permits for the hunt. Opponents of the hunt have urged supporters to apply for permits in the hope of reducing the number of bears killed.
Up to 187 permits are expected to be issued, with each permit holder able to kill one bear. Applications, which cost $5 per entry, will be accepted through Monday.
People selected will then have to pay for the permits --- $100 for Florida residents and $300 for non-residents.
In the lawsuit, Bear Warriors United contend the agency limited public participation before approving the hunt. The group also contested the “scientific methodology” that was used in such things as determining the state’s bear population and documenting mortality of adult female bears.
“Consequently, the FWC’s rule sanctions and creates an annual decision by the executive director concerning bear hunts that is arbitrary or capricious because it is not supported by facts, logic or reason,” the lawsuit said.
The state had an estimated 4,050 bears in 2015, considered the most recent figures by the commission.
For this year’s hunt, the commission established a quota that would allow 68 bears to be killed in the Apalachicola region west of Tallahassee; 46 in areas west of Jacksonville; 18 in an area north of Orlando; and 55 in the Big Cypress region southwest of Lake Okeechobee.
The lawsuit argued that the “next statistically valid population abundance assessment is not expected to be available (until) 2030, following a second round of statewide genetic mark-recapture surveys.”
Instead of hunting, the nonprofit Bear Warriors United advocates for measures such as bear-proofing garbage cans to reduce conflict between people and bears foraging for food.
