Florida judge orders gruesome death for 172 bears in ritual

As many as 172 black bears are at risk of death in Florida after a judge approved the first hunt in a decade.

Leon County Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey rejected a request from Bear Warriors United, a Central Florida-based nonprofit, to halt this year’s hunt, saying the group had failed to show a ‘substantial likelihood of success on the merits’ in its lawsuit.

The hunt is scheduled for December 6 through 28 on lands outside the wildlife management area system. 

The commission issued 172 hunting permits, with each recipient allowed to kill one bear. Hunts will take place in four regions: the Apalachicola area west of Tallahassee, lands west of Jacksonville, a zone north of Orlando, and the Big Cypress area southwest of Lake Okeechobee.

Bear hunts in Florida began in the 1930s and ran until 1994, when the population dropped below 500. The hunt restarted in 2015 but was halted early after 304 bears were killed in just two days. This year’s hunt has been designed with stricter limits to prevent a repeat of that outcome.

Dempsey said: ‘That 2015 hunt was found constitutional under the rational basis test, and this hunt is significantly more conservative than that hunt in 2015, both in the number of bears that could be harvested, as well as the timing, when it’s a little less likely for more female bears to be killed.’

Bear Warriors United, however, argues the commission approved the hunt in August using outdated data and without ‘sound’ science. 

Thomas Crapps, an attorney for the group, said: ‘FWC (the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) has made a decision here to go forward with a bear hunt, starting on Dec. 6, and has made its decision based on outdated and stale population information and models.’

A hunting license and a bear harvest permit are required to participate. Applicants must have been at least 18 years old by October 1, 2025.

Bear harvest permits are non-transferable and cost $100 for residents and $300 for nonresidents, plus handling fees. Only 10 percent of the permits are allocated to nonresidents.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said reopening the regulated bear hunt will allow officials to manage population growth while providing public access to the resource.

‘Hunting allows the FWC to start managing population growth rates for the Bear Management Units, or BMUs, with the largest bear subpopulations,’ the agency said. 

‘Slowing population growth will help balance population numbers with suitable habitat, and hunting is an important and effective tool that is used to manage wildlife populations across the world.’

The FWC cited the most recent scientifically valid population estimate from 2015, which indicated roughly 4,050 bears statewide.

Michael Orlando, the commission’s bear program coordinator, told Judge Dempsey that bear population studies do not operate on a strict timeline.

‘Those studies are good for quite a bit of time, based on female survival, birth rates, death rates, that sort of thing. So, no, all of that is the best available science that we have, and we make decisions based on that,’ Orlando said.

He added that the hunt was planned conservatively to minimize impacts on female bears.

‘If all 172 bears were harvested, and they were all female, it would still not impact the population,’ Orlando said. 

Rhonda Parnell, the commission’s acting deputy general counsel, countered that Bear Warriors United had not demonstrated any violation of constitutional due-process rights. 

She noted that the group’s members had opportunities to participate, attending public workshops and two official meetings where the bear hunt rules were established. 

Parnell also highlighted that courts have consistently affirmed the commission’s sole authority to regulate hunting in Florida. 

‘This becomes Bear Warriors whining about what they did not get,’ Parnell said. ‘They didn’t get what they wanted, because they didn’t want a bear hunt.’ 

The 2015 season was scheduled for a full week, allowing up to 320 black bears to be killed.

Soon after the hunt began early in the morning, hunters began arriving at check stations throughout the state so that their bears could be weighed and their deaths could be recorded by officials.