Florida Bear Hunt Harvests Paltry 52 Bears

Bear approaches door of home. Image from Winter Springs, Florida, Police Department
 

he Florida 2025 black bear hunt has been a flop as an attempt to manage the bear population in Florida. It may have been successful as a trial run on how to manage a bear hunt. Only 52 bears were harvested. To keep a stable population, at least 600 bears should have been harvested, probably 1500. About 15 % of a black bear population needs to be harvested to keep a stable population.   From myfwc.com:

There were 52 bears harvested during the 2025 bear hunt, which is a hunter success rate very close to other states with similar hunt parameters. All harvested bears were physically checked by FWC staff and bear response contractors, providing valuable data that will influence future management strategies. Analysis of the data collected is underway, and a full harvest report will be released in the coming months.

In 2024, 295 Florida bears were killed in vehicular accidents. One thing missing from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) press release is an estimate of the population of bears in Florida. This important number is essential when managing a wildlife population. The last official estimate is from 2014-2015, over a decade ago. An estimate was supposed to be done in 2025. The FWC now says a population estimate may be done by 2029. In 2014-2015, the estimate put the Florida bear population at 4,350 bears. In the 2019 Florida Black Bear Management Plan, the best estimate showed an expected bear population in 2026-2027 of 11,088. This is very close to the estimate of pre-Columbian bear population of 11,500.  These estimates do not include cubs.

The estimate of 11,088 bears is for the four largest subpopulations of bears in Florida. The three smallest subpopulations in Florida added another 238 bears in 2014-2015. Those populations have probably doubled in the last decade. Other than vehicle accidents, the largest killer of bears in Florida is the adult male bear. Adult male bears kill (and usually eat) about 1/2 of cubs before the cubs become independent. Boar bears almost certainly kill over a thousand bear cubs in Florida every year.

When adult male bears are harvested by human hunters, they kill fewer cubs. More bear cubs have a chance to become adults. To stabilize a bear population, about 10-15% of the adult bears have to be harvested every year. In Michigan, the bear harvest has been about 15% of the bear population for many years. The Michigan bear population continues to grow. Bear harvests in Michigan average over 1,700 per year, from a bear population of 12,000.  We do not know the bear population in Florida, because the FWC has been rather slow in measuring the population. Using the best estimate from the FWC plan published in 2019, there should be over ten thousand bears in Florida. To stabilize the bear population, the harvest should be about 1,500 per year.

Next year, if the FWC decides to stabilize the Florida bear population, they should issue at least 20 times the permit numbers issued in 2025, or about 3,000. If the proportion of success is the same as in 2025, about 900 bears would be harvested. This number is still to low to stabilize the Florida bear population, but it would provide more data to confirm success ratios for bear hunters.

  

©2025 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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