Florida is considering their first black bear hunt in less than a decade. You can weigh yourself.

For the first time in almost a decade, Florida wildlife officials are considering hunting black bears.

Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee in December asked staff to come up with suggestions for possible hunting after noting that officials now consider it a floating bear population.

However, wildlife advocates are worried that the hunt could be wrong, especially after the 2015 hunting season was shortened when hunters killed a bear allocation that was allowed in about 48 hours.

The Wildlife Commission, dubbed “one of Florida’s most successful conservation efforts,” says there are over 4,000 wild black bears compared to hundreds of them in the 1970s. However, the agency has also not completed a rich survey of population in about 10 years.

The Wildlife Committee closed the bear hunt in Florida in 1994 and resumed a short season in 2015, intended to last a week. Faced with more murdered bears than expected, authorities closed the statewide hunt two days later.

During that 2015 hunt, wildlife officials set up an allocation of the amount of bears that could be killed in four areas where hunting is permitted, and the state closed the two at the end of the first day as hunters killed more bears than the limit. In the eastern Panhandle, twice as many dead bears were killed as permitted permits, the Tampa Bay Times reported at the time.

The hunters have killed over 300 bears. There hasn’t been a hunting season since.

Currently, state wildlife experts say there is no evidence of a decline in population over the past decade, and there are multiple subpopulations of bears that are “big and healthy enough to maintain the hunt.” The committee said it would consider past hunting regulations and how other states would treat bear hunting and come up with hunting options to present to the public.

The Wildlife Commissioner will hold a virtual meeting on March 13th at 6pm to hear public thoughts on the possibility of bear hunting. The agency also collects feedback via email via bearcomments@myfwc.com.

The coalition of bear advocacy groups said it is preparing to oppose the hunt, including a upcoming March webinar and during the May committee meeting, where the bear hunt is expected to come out for discussion.

Katrina Shadix, executive director of non-profit Bear Warriors United, said Bear Hunt is “wrong on many levels.”

“There are 23 million bears and 4,000 bears in Florida, so we know where the population problem lies: it’s human,” she said. Despite the state not completing a wealth of research since 2015, Shadix claims that recent automobile attacks have prevented bear populations from surged.

State data shows that more than 2,600 bears in Florida were killed in car strikes between 2014 and 2023.

“Our state wildlife agencies should hire more law enforcement officers to provide more protection for bears and to protect already declining wildlife populations,” Shadix said in an interview.

Gary Lester, vice president of village community relations and appointed wildlife commissioner by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022, first proposed a Bear Hunt during a committee meeting in December.

“I’ll be very concise. I’d like to see suggestions from the bear hunting staff,” Leicester said.

Rodney Barrett, the Wildlife Agency chair, said in response to Leicester that the commissioners have had internal conversations about the state’s bear “hotspots” and whether hunting will be possible in the future.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which works closely with the state commission, said it would not take a position under certain hunting regulations.

“We trust our dedicated scientists on the (Wildlife Commission) to sustainably manage Florida wildlife,” said Michelle Ashton, a spokesman for the foundation.

“Their decisions are informed by extensive research and transparent public processes, ensuring that policies are designed to conserve seeds while taking into account all stakeholder inputs,” she said.

Recent changes to Florida’s laws and constitution may have set the stage for future bear hunts.

In November, Floridians approved a voting measure that encompassed fishing and hunting as a state’s constitutional right.

Advocates of change said it was a proactive approach to preempting future bans on fishing and hunting, but critics worried that it could lead to the adoption of cruel hunting practices.

Last year, DeSantis signed a controversial bill, allowing people to shoot and kill bears in self-defense.

According to the bill, the law comes into effect in July and in July, allowing people to kill bears if they needed to avoid any major damage to themselves, other people’s and their family’s pets and their homes.

The Desantis signature comes weeks after a black bear over 400 pounds was found shot dead in the Apopka man’s garden.

Records show that the animal has a bullet hole in its left lung. Official cause of death: “illegal murder.”