A wildlife conservation group has filed a complaint against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, saying it violated state law in how it developed rules to resume an annual black bear hunting season.
In a challenge filed Aug. 15 with the state’s Division of Administrative Hearings, Bear Warriors United argued the FWC’s rules for a December hunt are an improper use of its rule-making powers.
The group’s attorney, Raquel Levy of Daytona Beach, said the FWC did not follow its own procedures, violated its charter to include scientific data and public input in management decisions, and denied due process to the public.
Bear Warriors seeks to block the FWC from issuing any bear hunting permits until all legal appeals have been exhausted. The FWC does not comment on pending litigation.
Florida ended holding an annual bear hunting season in 1994 when the bear population was around 1,000. Bears have since increased to around 4,000, based on projections from a 2014 count. A new bear population estimate is expected in 2030.
A coalition of conservation groups have been working to block the hunt ever since FWC chair Rodney Barreto directed the agency’s biologists to develop a hunt last December. That request came at the conclusion of a bear management update that highlighted non-lethal strategies to curtail an increase in bear nuisance calls, up to more than 6,000 in 2024 from 2,000 in 2016.
Staff proposed a 23-day hunting season this December that includes 187 hunting permits. A permit entitles a hunter to harvest one bear from one of four bear management units, and there are seven BMUs across the state. Dates, locations, and quotas for future hunts will be determined annually by the agency’s executive director.
That’s one of the problems with the new rules, according to Bear Warriors United.
To allow the executive director to unilaterally decide when, where, and how a hunt will proceed represents an “invalid exercise of delegated legislative authority,” as well as being “vague, arbitrary and capricious” – common language in rules challenges.
Levy wrote that Florida law does not grant the executive director the authority to make decisions regarding the sustainable management of wildlife. That denies due process rights to the public and the seven-member commission itself by giving the executive director sole authority to decide details about hunts.
And the group argues by not building a scientific-based argument for a hunt, FWC staff ignored the Legislature’s mandate to develop scientifically based recommendations that support sound management of wildlife.
According to Levy, not once during six virtual public meetings about a bear hunt did the FWC provide any scientific information to support resuming bear hunting.
Marsha Biggs of the Sierra Club was one of nearly a hundred people who spoke against the proposed hunt at the Havana meeting. She urged commissioners to make the data public so people could see why the FWC claims there are enough bears to justify hunting.
“Let’s see the science and let’s evaluate it before you call for a hunt,” Biggs said.
Finally, the complaint says FWC hampered participation in the process when it wrongly informed the public that the deadline to submit comments was July 4, when state law allows public comment up until the end of a final public hearing, which was Aug. 13.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida bear hunt rules face legal challenge from conservationists
Reporting by James Call, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
