Something powerful happens when people realize they are not powerless.

That is the story of Spare-a-Bear, Bag-a-Tag.

What began as a simple idea, 
  - enter Florida’s bear-hunt lottery, win a permit, and use it to spare rather than kill a bear, -
has become something much bigger. It is a declaration about what kind of Florida we want to leave behind.

In 2025, bear advocates claimed 52 permits that otherwise could have gone to hunters. Coincidentally, 52 bears were killed during that hunt. Every permit taken out of circulation by an advocate represented possibility: one less opportunity to pull a trigger and one more chance for a bear to walk back into the forest.

This year, we came back.

Because saving a bear is about more than saving one magnificent animal.

It is a vote for the forest itself.

Florida black bears need large, connected landscapes. As they roam in search of food, mates and denning habitat, their survival demands what all of Wild Florida needs: forests, wetlands, wildlife corridors and clean water. Protect enough land for bears and we protect habitat for countless other species - and natural systems that sustain us, too.

The bear becomes a defender of the forest simply by needing the forest to survive.

And now our campaign enters its next chapter: Blunt the Hunt.

The lottery may decide who gets a tag. It does not decide what happens next.

That choice belongs to the person holding it.

So we are making an appeal directly to Florida’s hunters, including those who may disagree with us about hunting generally:

Claim the tag. Not the bear.

A permit is permission. It is not an obligation.

Imagine the power of hunters and bear advocates standing on different sides of some issues but together on this one - agreeing that Florida’s black bear deserves more time, better science and more secure habitat.

There is honor in restraint.

There is sportsmanship in deciding that just because you can take an animal does not mean you must.

And there is something deeply Floridian about choosing to leave a bear beneath the pines, palmettos and oaks for another generation to encounter.

That is how we Blunt the Hunt.

We also know lasting change will require something else: different leadership.

Florida’s seven FWC commissioners are appointed by the governor. That makes the 2026 election consequential for wildlife conservation. Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Jolly has publicly said the FWC should not be led by “developers, landowners, and trophy hunters,” but instead by conservationists grounded in science, with hunters and sportsmen still having a voice at the table.

That offers something this movement has needed for a long time:

Hope.

Hope that someday we will not have to buy chances in a lottery to save bears from a hunt we believe should never have been approved.

Hope that wildlife decisions will begin with science and conservation rather than finding science to justify a predetermined outcome.

Hope that the people appointed to safeguard Florida wildlife will understand that their first responsibility is exactly that, to safeguard it.

But we are not waiting for Tallahassee.

Every person who entered Spare-a-Bear already cast another kind of vote.

A vote for bears.

A vote for forests.

A vote for clean water, wildlife corridors and a Wild Florida that still has room for something bigger than ourselves.

Now we ask those holding the winning tags to cast one more.

Claim the tag. Spare the bear.

Let that bear walk back into the woods.

And let its tracks remind us what we are fighting to keep.