April 24–A dozen Florida lawmakers, including several with ties to Central Florida, want state wildlife officials to allow limited bear hunts in “hot spot areas” after two recent bear maulings in Seminole County.
The lawmakers, who also want the state’s waste-management companies to provide “bear-proof” trash containers, sent their requests in a letter Monday to Nick Wiley, executive director of the Florida Fish Wildlife Conservation Commission.
They cited “the latest incidents involving human and bear interaction” for their requests, which also ask the agency for an educational program for people living near bear habitat.
“What I’m concerned about mainly is that this continues to happen without intervention and the bears walk up on children who are playing and drag them off into the woods,” said Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, calling hunting “a piece of the solution.”
But Rep. Mike Clelland, a Lake Mary Democrat whose district includes both neighborhoods where the maulings occurred, described the push for bear hunting as “absurd.”
“It’ll only add to the public-safety issue we’re dealing with now by having people hunt bears between neighborhoods,” said Clelland, who was not asked to sign the letter. “It’s not the number of bears that we’re most concerned about — it’s bears interacting with humans. The reason they’re interacting with humans is trash. We can solve that problem with bear-proof cans, not guns.”
Both Brodeur and Clelland think educating homeowners to be bear-aware is more important.
FWC’s Wiley was open to the legislators’ suggestions, including a bear hunt.
“I saw the letter as helpful,” he said. “They offered up a broad range of ideas they thought were really important for us to consider.”
Florida prohibited bear hunting in most areas of the state in 1971, when black bears were considered a threatened species, with fewer than 300 roaming the state. All bear hunting in the state was outlawed in 1994.
The black bear was officially listed by the state as a threatened species in 1974.
Since then, the bear population has grown at least tenfold to a number estimated at 3,000 or more, with as many as 1,500 roaming the state’s central wildlife corridors, which range from Ocala through Orange and Seminole counties to Kissimmee.
Brodeur compared bears to alligators, listed as an endangered species in 1968.
“By 1988, Florida was issuing recreational-hunting permits in order to keep the population in check,” Brodeur said. “It may be time for Fish Wildlife to do a thorough analysis and find out if we are, in fact, at that place where the bear population has recovered to such a degree that there needs to be a little bit more active management of that population.”
Brodeur did not suggest where hunting should be allowed, deferring to FWC’s judgment. He said the wildlife agency is putting together an analysis of the state’s bear population, which should shed light on the areas with the thickest concentration of the animals.
Wildlife officials say the call for limited bear hunts grew louder after Terri Frana, 44, was attacked April 12 by a “food-driven” bear in Carisbrooke, a gated community in Seminole County that borders on Wekiva woodlands, prime bear habitat.
She was the second person mauled in four months.
Susan Chalfant, 54, was attacked while walking two small dogs Dec. 2 in Wingfield North, also a gated community near Markham Woods Road.
Wildlife officials have said both women lived in neighborhoods where bears were commonly seen roaming through yards, snatching fruit and acorns from trees, raiding trash cans for food scraps and leftovers, and shaking seed from backyard bird feeders.
Among the other legislators who signed the letter to FWC were Republicans Eric Eisnaugle of Orlando, Ritch Workman of Melbourne and Halsey Beshear, who was born in Winter Park but resides in Apalachicola in the Panhandle.
The lone Democrat to sign the letter was Katie Edwards of Plantation, niece of Orange County Commissioner Ted Edwards.
The others are Frank Artiles of Miami; Ben Albritton, whose district includes part of Polk County; Jim Boyd of Bradenton; Matt Caldwell of Lehigh Acres in Lee County; James “J.W.” Grant of Tampa; Doug Holder of Venice; and Dana Young of Tampa.
The brief letter read:
“In light of the latest incidents involving human and bear interaction, we the undersigned would like to see FWC begin to implement any existing management plans for bears that would include addressing, but not be limited to:
–An educational program for residents living near bear habitat.
–A proposal for waste management companies to provide ‘bear proof’ trash containers.
–A proposal for select hunts in the hot spot areas.”
Florida’s existing bear-management plan — its strategy guide — does not propose a bear hunt.
However, the 215-page document requires FWC to “explore options to slow population growth,” including use of hunting.
“It’s saying that discussion’s on the table for us,” Wiley said. “I do think there are geographic areas where hunting could be a useful tool. But hunting, all by itself, is not the solution.”
He said most human-bear conflicts occur in residential neighborhoods where hunting would be inappropriate.
“I don’t think anybody’s proposing that,” he said.
Wiley said FWC also would oppose hunting in state parks and preserves such as Wekiva Springs, thought to be home to hundreds of bears.
Residents who attended recent FWC meetings in Longwood, Umatilla and DeLand to discuss bears in Central Florida appeared to strongly favor other management strategies, though some viewed hunting as at least one part of the solution.
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