{"id":101969,"date":"2026-01-01T04:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T04:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/101969\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T04:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T04:44:19","slug":"local-hunter-reflects-after-floridas-bear-hunt-wraps-up-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/101969\/","title":{"rendered":"Local hunter reflects after Florida\u2019s bear hunt wraps up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Florida wrapped up its bear hunt this week, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/12\/30\/more-than-50-harvested-black-bears-reported-fwc-during-florida-bear-hunt-season\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/12\/30\/more-than-50-harvested-black-bears-reported-fwc-during-florida-bear-hunt-season\/\">Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said hunters reported killing 52 bears<\/a> since the season started on Dec. 6. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">One of those hunters, Frank Richardson, is one of more than 100 people who took part in Florida\u2019s first bear hunt since 2015. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI hunted for a week straight before even seeing the first bear,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were a lot more wary, a lot more crafty, and a lot smarter than I thought they would be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Richardson killed a 170-pound bear in Wakulla County. He said he\u2019s glad bear hunting is back, and says this hunt was a good start.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cSeems like a more responsible manner than they went about it last time, where it seemed like a lot more got killed,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a learning curve for everyone. I think the small number was a decent starting and we can always see where to go from here.\u201c<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Richardson is an avid hunter, but this was his first time hunting bear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The FWC is expected to release a full report on the statewide bear hunt in the next few months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error that needs correction? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walb.com\/2025\/12\/31\/learning-curve-local-hunter-reflects-after-floridas-bear-hunt-wraps-up\/mailto:walb-digitalproducers@gray.tv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Let us know.<\/a> Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">To stay up to date on all the latest news as it develops, follow WALB on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WALBNews10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WALBNews10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">X (Twitter)<\/a>. For more South Georgia news, download the WALB News app from the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/walb-news-10\/id449395459\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Apple Store<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/search?q=walb+news+10+app&amp;c=apps&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Google Play<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WALB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Florida wrapped up its bear hunt this week, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[910,9796,53330,28,30,29,53332,14604,53331,14151,53333,53334,53335,1549,16993,4624],"class_list":["post-101969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-bear","tag-bears","tag-flordia-bear-hunting","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-frank-richardson","tag-hunting","tag-local-hunter","tag-wakulla-county","tag-walb","tag-walb-news","tag-walb-news-10","tag-wctv","tag-wctv-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}