BEAR HUNTING IN FLORIDA: Florida Officials Revive Bear Hunt in Wake of Human Attacks
Yahoo! I bet the bear attacks will go down once hunters start letting the air out of several of them.
After more than 20 years, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is bringing back bear hunting to the Sunshine State. The decision to plan a limited weeklong season was first announced early last month, and although it has yet to be finalized, officials now say that hunting could take place as early as this fall. It will be the first season in the state since officials banned bear hunting in 1994 due to population declines. Yet, a rash of bear attacks in 2014 and a general increase in black bear numbers has convinced the agency to take a “more aggressive approach.”
“We are not proposing that hunting is going to directly resolve most of these human-bear conflicts in suburban areas,” Thomas Eason, director of Habitat Species Coordination with the FWC, told The Guardian.
Eason clarified that the limited season is meant to augment other efforts to reduce bear conflicts, adding that 32 of the 41 states with a black bear population already use hunting as a management method. Biologists say that a limited hunt could mean a big difference for those Panhandle communities that see younger bears venture out for food—usually by digging through garbage.
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