{"id":21400,"date":"2025-10-26T18:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T18:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/21400\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T18:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T18:15:07","slug":"animal-advocates-sue-aiming-to-stop-floridas-first-bear-hunt-since-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/21400\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal advocates sue, aiming to stop Florida\u2019s first bear hunt since 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 A Florida wildlife advocacy group has filed an injunction against the state\u2019s wildlife commission in an attempt to halt a controversial black bear hunt scheduled for December.<\/p>\n

Bear Warriors United, based in Oviedo, filed the legal challenge last week against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), seeking to stop the hunt planned for Dec. 6-28.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe No. 1 argument all day long, all week long, all month long, all year long, is that they don\u2019t have the science to back up an overpopulation of bears,\u201d said attorney Raquel Levy of Atlantic Law Center in Daytona Beach, who is handling the case pro bono.<\/p>\n

The legal challenge questions the FWC\u2019s data and decision-making process. <\/p>\n

According to the injunction<\/a>, the commission was established to ensure \u201cthat sound research, science, and management techniques should prevail over politics when it comes to wildlife conservation and management.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ: Emergency injunction filed against Florida bear hunt<\/a><\/p>\n

The lawsuit highlights discrepancies in bear population data. One example cited shows FWC research indicating a two-thirds reduction in Osceola\u2019s bear population over 10 years, dropping below 200 bears. <\/p>\n

However, the FWC recently reported an estimate of 307 bears in that area, a figure that includes parts of Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the least-developed area has a two-thirds decline, we can only imagine the decline in other areas,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n

The FWC unanimously approved the hunt in August and began selling harvest permits in September. <\/p>\n

According to the FWC\u2019s website<\/a>, the hunt aims to harvest up to 187 bears, stating that \u201cslowing population growth will help balance population numbers with suitable habitat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levy argues that urban sprawl is a primary threat to Florida\u2019s black bears. She also raised concerns about the potential impact on bear cubs, referencing the controversial 2015 hunt.<\/p>\n

That previous hunt was shut down after just two days when hunters nearly reached the 320-bear limit, harvesting 304 bears in the opening weekend. Nearly 3,800 permits had been sold for that hunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cA very significant percentage of the bears that they killed were actually lactating mothers, which left the baby bears, cubs, orphaned,\u201d Levy said. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be irreparable harm done to wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hearing on the injunction is expected to take place on or around Nov. 17 in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 A Florida wildlife advocacy group has filed an injunction against the state\u2019s wildlife commission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1684,8278,1563,28,30,29,4747,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-21400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-bear-hunt","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-fwc","15":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21400","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=21400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}