ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The first Florida bear hunting season in ten years kicked off Saturday. Permits were distributed to those in favor and against the hunt.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Florida’s first black bear hunting season in a decade kicked off Saturday
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172 permits were distributed across the state, though some against the hunt obtained them and say they won’t use them
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18 permits were available in the Central Florida region
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The bear hunting season ends Dec. 28<\/p>\n
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announced 163,459 applications were submitted. 172 permits were distributed across the state.<\/p>\n
In Central Florida, only 18 bear tags were available \u2014 the smallest of all four regions \u2014 based on the agency\u2019s bear population growth model. Only one bear can be harvested per permit.<\/p>\n
Hunters like Lewis Pryzstup applied several times, but had no luck receiving one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always going to be applying to hopefully achieve a bear tag. I don\u2019t see myself getting one anytime soon, but as long as they keep growing in population, which they should, I believe bear tags will become more available to the public,\u201d said Pryzstup.<\/p>\n
Others, like Chuck O\u2019Neal, applied to receive a tag with the intention of not using it to save a bear\u2019s life. He told Spectrum News he applied more than 200 times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get a permit,\u201d said O\u2019Neal. \u201cI know quite a few people who did get a permit, and I\u2019m very happy that we sequestered around 50, maybe more, of the permits. So that\u2019s 50 bears who won\u2019t be shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizations like Bear Warriors United offered incentives \u2014 $2,000 for hunters who agree not to use their permit and kill a bear.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to save bear lives and help people get through the holidays during these tough economic times,\u201d said executive director Katrina R. Shadix in an email to Spectrum News.<\/p>\n
Each application cost $5, ringing up $817,295\u00a0for the state. FWC says the money will be used for wildlife conservation and the State Game Trust Fund.<\/p>\n
The bear hunting season ends Dec. 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The first Florida bear hunting season in ten years kicked off Saturday. Permits were distributed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1684,1015,1563,28,30,29,115,139,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-73800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-emma-delamo","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-tampa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73800","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=73800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}