‘Flying blind’: Pro-bear nonprofit sues FWC to halt December hunt

Opponents of Florida’s first sanctioned black bear hunt in a decade are suing to stop the planned killings, arguing the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) violated state law and relied on outdated science to justify the event.

Oviedo-based nonprofit Bear Warriors United has filed a petition seeking to invalidate FWC’s newly adopted rule authorizing the Dec. 6-28 hunt in four “bear management units.”

The plan allows up to 187 black bears to be killed by various means through a lottery-based permit system.

Bear Warriors is asking for a Judge to block FWC from issuing permits until the case is resolved and to declare the rule invalid. The group also seeks attorneys fees.

The complaint, filed Friday with the Division of Administrative Hearings, contends the rule improperly delegates decision-making powers from FWC’s seven constitutionally appointed Commissioners to the agency’s Director or designee.

Lawyers Thomas Crapps and Raquel Levy, representing Bear Warriors United, argue the change grants “unbridled authority to issue permits to kill bears annually without any guidance or scientific fact.”

To that end, they wrote, the decision to authorize the hunt is “based on stale facts from a 2014-2015 bear population study and is directly contrary to FWC’s own 2019 Bear Management Plan.”

FWC members voted unanimously Aug. 13 to authorize the hunt. It’s the first since 2015, when officials halted the hunt after 295 bears were killed in just two days. The FWC had expected it to take a week to reach that number.

This year’s hunt will see 187 permits distributed across four regions: 68 for the East Panhandle, 46 for North Florida, 18 for Central Florida, and 55 for South Florida. Residents will pay $100 per permit, while non-residents, capped at 10% of total permits, will pay $300.

FWC leaders said the hunt is intended to manage Florida’s estimated 4,000 black bears and reduce conflicts with humans. Reports of “nuisance” bear encounters, according to FWC data, climbed from 2,000 in 2016 to more than 6,000 in 2024.

In June 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation by Tallahassee Sen. Corey Simon and Port St. Joe Rep. Jason Shoaf that loosened restrictions on the use of lethal force during bear encounters. Proponents of the measure, like Liberty County Sheriff’s Deputy Dusty Arnold, cited a proliferation of the animals in his support of the change.

“If you’ve got a dog, they’re coming in, they’re tearing your pens up, getting the dog food. If you have a grill out and you don’t clean it properly, they’re coming onto your porches and they’re trying to tear your grill open,” he said. “We’re starting to see a lot more bears hit by cars, so we’re having a lot of property damage everywhere.”

Opponents, like Chuck O’Neil, President of the Speak Up Wekiva environmental group, called the measure “overly broad” and potentially devastating the state’s black bear population. He predicted ahead of the FWC’s vote last week that if approved, the hunt wouldn’t go forward easily.

“I think it’s going to end up in the court of public opinion,” he told the Fort Myers News-Press. “That’s where we’re going to fight this out and make it as politically unpopular as possible.”

In an email included in the petition, environmental lawyer Clay Henderson, who helped draft the 1998 constitutional amendment creating the FWC, criticized the agency for “flying blind” by relying on outdated population figures from 2017.

He agreed with the lawsuit’s central arguments: that the 187-bear quota relies on outdated estimates, which don’t account for population declines following the 2015 hunt, and that the FWC’s decision unlawfully delegates to the agency’s Executive Director nontransferable powers and responsibilities.

“The Legislature specifically reserved the assignment of duties and responsibilities necessary to develop ‘management techniques’ for ‘enhancement of animal populations’ to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (the FWC’s research division) — and not the executive director,” he wrote. “Not only did the Legislature specifically reserve this assignment of duties to only the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, but it also mandated that FWC do so.”

Bear Warriors United said it was filing a lawsuit last week even before the hunt was approved, arguing the FWC improperly delisted black bears from its threatened species list.

The challenge comes after weeks of heated debate. Environmental groups, including Bear Warriors and Bear Defenders, organized protests in at least 11 cities last weekend and raised billboards, including one near the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee. An FWC survey of 13,000 Floridians found 75% opposed the hunt, while a separate Humane World for Animals poll put opposition at 81%.