Seminole County organizers prep for key bear hunt vote in two weeks

Organizers are preparing for a key meeting in two weeks on rules for a proposed bear hunt in Florida that could happen by the end of 2025, which a Seminole County wildlife activist is calling “a huge slap in the face to science and responsible management.” 

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is meeting on Aug. 13 and 14 at 8:30 a.m. in Havana, Florida, near Tallahassee. The agenda for the meeting can be found here, and the staff agenda on the bear hunt is here. 

According to a state document outlining the proposal, Florida’s estimated bear population is just over 4,000. In total, permits would be issued to hunt 187 bears statewide, including 18 in the Central region, which includes Seminole, Sumter, Marion, Alachua, Bradford, Clay, Putnam, Lake, Orange, Volusia, Flagler and St. Johns counties. 

Florida allowed a bear hunt in 2015, and the bear hunt was called off after two days when the maximum number of bears were killed. A key difference between then and now is that these rules allow for an annual bear hunting season, with a limited number of permits issued by zone each year, as determined by FWC staff. 

“The proposed first season would run from the first Saturday in December through the last Sunday in December for the first year (23 days in total), with future season dates established annually between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 by posting on MyFWC.com,” the memo reads. “The number of bear permits issued would be determined annually based on hunter success rates as well as known population and mortality data.”

Another change with the rules: Dogs would be allowed to be used in the hunts in a “phased-in approach,” and bears can be hunted near feeding stations. It also allows “a private lands bear harvest program for landowners with greater than 5,000 contiguous acres of land.”

Oviedo Community News reached out to multiple hunting groups in Central Florida, but was unable to find a hunter interested in the bear hunt that would go on record. If you are a hunter interested in participating in a bear hunt, contact reporter Abe Aboraya here. 

The Sierra Club is organizing a bus trip for residents up to the meeting in Havana, Florida. Katrina Shadix is a Chuluota resident and founder and executive director of Bear Warriors United. She’s helping to vet people taking the Sierra Club’s buses to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meeting. 

So far, she said, 200 people are registered to attend the meeting and speak against the bear hunt, including several from Seminole County. She said commissioners are making a decision that could “permanently threaten the survival of Florida black bears in the long run.”

Shadix said cars are already killing enough bears in Central Florida to manage the population. 

“We really don’t need to be out there sport hunting them because they’re being killed off at an unsustainable rate in Central Florida,” Shadix said. “The central region should be eliminated as a region. I think it’s a huge slap in the face to science and responsible management.”

Shadix said she is planning to file a lawsuit against the bear hunt. 

The meeting in May drew comments from more than 160 people, Central Florida Public Media reported. You can watch the full meeting here. 

Ten years ago, Seminole County was often the county in Florida with the most human-bear conflicts, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data. Since enacting ordinances to encourage bear-proof trash cans and dumpsters, Seminole County’s calls for bear-human interactions have dropped.

“You guys were the number one county in Florida for bear conflicts,” said Mike Orlando, the Bear Management Coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation in a presentation to the Seminole County Commission in March. “You would flip back and forth between Lake and Seminole County, between No. 1 and No. 2. … Now Seminole County is No. 8 with only 308 calls.”

Seminole County was getting between 600 and 700 calls when it had the highest number in the state, Orlando said. 

While the bulk of the calls in Seminole County are along its western edge, within the Wekiva State Forest and the state conservation area, there are calls in the Oviedo area as well. 

“Down in Oviedo, since the ordinance was put in place, our calls even in the Oviedo area have dropped,” Orlando said. “It seems like the ordinance is working well. But the best thing actually is bear-resistant garbage cans and all the efforts to keep attractants away from bears.”

According to data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, public opinion surveys after the hunt in 2015 found mixed results. While 70% of respondents support hunting in general, more people support hunting black bears than oppose it: 48% in support to 43% opposed. When asked about hunting black bears in your county, though, more people opposed it (48%) than supported it (40%). 

Black bear hunting is allowed in most states. Florida is one of six states with black bears that does not allow bear hunting.