Lawmakers file bills to halt bear hunts till 2027

Two lawmakers want to take the bulls-eye off Florida black bears.

Measures proposed by state Sen. Linda Stewart and state Rep. Amy Mercado, both Orlando Democrats, would halt state-sanctioned bear hunts until July 2027 and set aside $1 million to help more people buy lock-top trash containers in communities prone to human-bear conflicts.

The bills also propose new rules against harvesting saw palmetto berries, a staple of the bear’s natural diet and banning the sale of logging rights in state forests and parks, which include areas designated as Florida black bear habitat.

“Bear protection is not just about … not shooting them,” Stewart said Wednesday at Lake Eola Park. “It’s also about [protecting] their habitat . ... ”

She and Mercado discussed the measures with volunteer “bear warriors” — animal-welfare advocates who opposed the state’s 2015 bear hunt. A similar measure introduced last year by then-state Sen. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, died without a hearing.

Stewart was hopeful her tweaked version would be better received by the Republican-dominated Legislature. She said it incorporated changes suggested by the staff of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“There may very well be amendments,” she said. “But I don’t expect a fight.”

State Rep. Jason Brodeur, a Republican representing eastern Seminole County, questioned why the measures propose a hunting ban until 2027.

“I wonder if they have picked that date using the best available science through consultation with biologists at FWC or because it’s politically expedient,” he said in an email. “As evidenced by the recovery of the alligator from the 1960s to the 1980s, our wildlife programs work, especially with the advanced science and data collection we have now.”

Nick Wiley, the wildlife agency’s executive director, declined to offer an opinion on the proposed measures or a hunting ban.

“It’d be premature to say we feel one way or the other about it,” he said. “But to me, it’s a good thing to have people talking about habitat management.”

FWC’s governing commission voted against a hunt in 2016, and its staff has not yet offered a recommendation for 2017.

But an overwhelming majority of Floridians don’t want black bears to be hunted, said Chuck O’Neal, director of the Lake Marybased advocacy group Speak Up Wekiva, which fought unsuccessfully in 2015 to prevent the state from staging its first bear hunt in two decades.

That hunt killed 304 bears and sparked outrage among conservationists.

O’Neal said the proposed measures would protect bears by shelving hunts for 10 years, adding new safeguards for bear habitat and directing the wildlife agency to conduct a new study to evaluate the effect of the 2015 hunt on the state’s bear population. He said an “inordinate” number of female black bears were killed in the hunt, including more than three dozen that were nursing cubs.

If approved, the state would provide $1 million to expand programs that defray the cost of bear-resistant trash containers. The money would come from a wildlife trust fund, whose revenues are derived from donations and fees for motor-vehicle licenses and registrations.

Bears often venture into neighborhoods to raid trash cans for food. But the locktop bins have proven to be an effective bear deterrent, especially in communities abutting conservation areas and woodlands where bears sometimes seem as common as squirrels. The FWC handed out $825,000 last year to Orange, Lake, Seminole and nine other counties to expand the use of the special bins.

State wildlife officials completed a population survey of bears last year using data compiled before the 2015 hunt. The study showed the species had rebounded to more than 4,000 animals, up from as few as 300 in the 1970s when bears were state-designated as a “threatened” species.

The designation was dropped in 2012. No region in the state has more bears than Central Florida, which includes the Ocala National Forest and the Wekiva River protection area. State officials consider Seminole — where three women were critically injured in separate run-ins with bruins in 2013 and 2014 — the “epicenter” of human-bear conflicts.

Some FWC commissioners cited the maulings as justification for a bear hunt, though the agency’s bear biologists said a hunt was simply a tool to manage the population.