Wildlife officials: Florida bears abundant, totaling 4,350

MIAMI (AP) – Black bears were abundant statewide before a hunt that sparked contentious protests over management of one of Florida’s largest predators, wildlife officials said Thursday.

No decision has been made on whether to continue allowing the hunting of Florida black bears, but data collected in the summer before the October hunt indicate the statewide population totaled 4,350 adult bears, said Thomas Eason, director of habitat and species conservation for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The hunt that killed 304 bears was Florida’s first in over 20 years, and game officials ended it early when the harvest limits in some hunting areas were quickly exceeded. At the time, the state said bear numbers in those areas were probably larger than previously thought.

Population surveys that began in 2014 were completed using hair samples collected from lures set for bears over 11 million acres. The new total reflects a 60 percent increase over roughly 2,700 estimated in 2002, Eason said.

With about 2,000 Florida bear cubs born each year, even though roughly half those cubs won’t survive the population has been increasing, Eason said.

“Populations are strong and robust and growing,” he said.

Animal advocates who protested the hunt have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to extend federal protections to Florida black bears, saying the harvest, urban sprawl and collisions with vehicles threaten the bears’ long-term survival.

While it’s good news that Florida’s bear population is growing, human population growth and habitat fragmentation still leave them vulnerable, Jacki Lopez of the Center for Biological Diversity said in an email.

The number of Florida black bears dwindled to just a few hundred in the 1970s. Now, the wildlife commission says the number of nuisance calls and collisions with bears has grown with the animals’ rebound.

Florida black bears are a subspecies of American black bears, which are hunted in 32 states. Earlier this month, federal officials said the population of Louisiana black bears, another subspecies, had recovered enough to no longer need protecting as an endangered or threatened species.