In early December, there was a proposed FL bill, HB 87- Taking of Bears.

This is a bill created by FL Rep. Shoaf as an approach to reduce negative human-bear encounters in the state of Florida. Despite strong pushback last Tuesday, the bill passed 14 to 4 in the Florida House Agriculture, Conservation, and Resiliency Subcommittee. Three Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Chaney, voted No.

HB 87 is not effectively written because it has no “circuit breaker” to control the proposed hunt. Many of us still have memories of the 2015 bear hunt that back-fired and resulted in killing more bears than was planned.

In 2015, 2600 permits were sold and the hunt was limited to only two days.

Unfortunately the result was that trophy hunters flooded Florida's woods. Many hunters were caught without licenses; others were caught baiting bears; 36 lactating mamas were slain which meant that an equal amount of cubs were abandoned and left behind uncared for; and then there were also babies that were shot.

The current bill, HB 87, has no “circuit breaker clause” to control the newly proposed hunt. This poses obvious threats to the current Florida black bear population.

There are also concerns about how the current bill is worded which allows the “feelings” of humans to justify killings. That will make it just about impossible to prove that a person did or did not feel threatened.

Therefore, there are no ways to prosecute wanton killings.

The Florida Sierra Club came out in force against the 2015 bear hunt and evidenced by the picture below. Time to activate again.

If 2015 was a free for all, imagine what this bill allow.

Please help us publicize HB 87 so that people will be prepared on short notice to leave voice mails or send emails that urge our legislators to vote NO on HB 87 especially if the current language is not seriously amended.

Florida needs to have science-based regulations based upon wildlife sustainability to create a sensible effective wildlife management program.