More than half the bears killed during December’s Florida bear hunt were from the state’s Panhandle, but the biggest animal killed was a 697-pound male in Collier County.
Overall, 52 bears were killed during the state’s first hunt in a decade, a 23-day season that was the final chapter in a year-long debate between wildlife advocates and hunters over the propriety of allowing a hunt.
The report released Jan. 9 shows more bears – 9 – were taken in Collier County than in any other county but that half the bears killed, or 28, were in the Panhandle. Of those, 13 were killed in the coastal counties of Bay, Gulf and Wakulla.
The hunt was held in four regions of the state where an estimated 4,000 bears lived. The report shows a total of 32 bears killed in north Florida, with four from the North Zone, west of Jacksonville, added to the 28 Panhandle bears.
Five were taken from the Central Zone, and another 15 bears were taken from Collier and Hendry counties in the South Zone. All the bears were hunted by a Florida resident, with one killed by a bow and arrow, two by shotgun, and the remainder by rifles.
Bear hunt by the numbers
In discussing the post-hunt report, both wildlife managers and bear advocates claimed victories. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Executive Director Roger Young said that “by all management measures, the hunt was a success.”
But Katrina Shadix of Bear Warriors United said a hunting success rate of just 30%, or less than a third, shows that bear hunting remains unpopular in Florida.
The state ended an annual bear hunt in 1994 before holding an abbreviated hunt in 2015. In 2025, FWC commissioners approved plans to resume an annual hunt.
Shadix said with last year’s hunt, opponents who had no intention of hunting were among the 163,000 applicants who entered the lottery for one of the 172 hunting permits, while others bought permits from lottery winners. The result, Shadix said, was that 120 bears were spared.
“This was an incredible effort to save bears’ lives and shows that black bear hunting is unpopular in Florida, a fact the FWC completely ignores,” Shadix said.
Young said biological information from all the bears killed was collected by either FWC biologists or contractors. None of the 24 females harvested were lactating, and all met the size requirements set for the hunt.
The FWC also reports that the hunt resulted in nearly $900,000 in application and hunting fees.
James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow on him X: @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida hunt by the numbers: Which county bagged the biggest bear?
Reporting by James Call, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
