Florida Fish and Wildlife officials have voted to postpone bear hunt plans for 2016.

The vote comes after hours of comments from dozens of people at an FWC meeting in Apalachicola Wednesday.

There were four options being considered:

  • One option would be to get rid of the bear hunt completely.
  • The second option would postpone the bear hunt until next year.
  • The third would allow feedback from the public to decide what to do.
  • The final option would keep the bear hunt similar to the one held last year

After nearly seven hours of comments from staff and the public, FWC commissioners voted not to hold the hunt this year while they get more information about the state's growing black bear population.

Last year’s bear hunt, which was scheduled to be a week long, only last two days after thousands of hunters met the hunting quota.

More than 300 black bears were killed. Central Florida had the most kills at 143 black bears. The east Panhandle had 114 kills, while the northern region reported 25 kills and the southern region reported 22.

FWC staff recommended hunting should continue in order to slow the growth of the bear population.

There have been numerous incidents with bears across Florida in recent years, including three separate incidents where black bears attacked women in Seminole County. 

At the FWC meeting in Eastpoint on Wednesday, hunting continued to spark a lot of strong opinions.

“It’s going to continue to happen, bears are continuing to grow in the range, and one bear pushes another out – that’s the way nature goes – and we’re going to continue to have it,” said Bill George, a bear hunt proponent.

“The way we see it, the problems is not the bears. There’s too many people in the state of Florida,” said Whitey Markle, a bear hunt opponent.

“The biggest problem is moving the people into the areas where the bear live, that’s the biggest problem – population migration,” said Markle.

Even if FWC were to move forward with another bear hunt, its staff recommends making changes. That could include limiting the hunt to only the areas where there are the most conflicts, limiting the amount of bear-hunting permits sold, and forcing hunters to tag bears sooner.

“And I hope they’re going to continue to support the bear hunt, but tweak it in some way shape or form to better manage it and the hunt,” said George.

Officials in several counties in Florida, including Seminole and Volusia Counties, have passed bear-hunting bans, although it’s unclear if that would stop bear hunting in those counties.