A Leon County judge will likely rule next month if a lawsuit can proceed over how wildlife officials approved its most recent bear hunt.
Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey on Wednesday set a May 29 deadline for both sides to submit proposed orders regarding the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's motion to dismiss the lawsuit by Bear Warriors United, a Central Florida-based nonprofit.
"That'll give me the opportunity to carefully review everything and go from there," Dempsey said at the end of the hearing streamed on Zoom.
The lawsuit contends the FWC relied on outdated bear population numbers and lacked scientific justification for the December 2025 hunt that resulted in 52 bears being killed over a three-week period. A trial is set to begin in August.
Thomas Crapps, representing the nonprofit, told Dempsey the FWC used population data from 2014-2015 rather than more current numbers and viewed its rules as "just guidelines."
"When I was in school and you would take a math test, if you just wrote the answer down, you might get the right answer. But if you didn't put all the steps and show how you got that answer, you didn't get credit," Crapps said. "And the reason is because you could get the right answer for the wrong reasons."
Susann Bradford, also representing Bear Warriors United, told Dempsey the suit is about requiring the FWC to follow its rules as "there's already been one hunt under these rules. There are likely to be more hunts approved in the future."
Ashley Lukis, representing the FWC, argued Bear Warriors United contentions are mostly speculative and she maintained the commission followed its rules regarding bear population data and the approval for the hunt.
"The plaintiff's argument, particularly under count one, is that 'we think that they did a poor job because they should have made different choices'," Lukis argued. "The amended complaint acknowledges that the challenged rules are based on 2014 bear population data. The plaintiff simply wishes that FWC would have used a different data set for 2017, that looked at certain subpopulations of bears. But they admit that we did use 2014 data. It was based on data."
Florida is estimated to have more than 4,000 black bears, which have drawn attention in some parts of the state because of interactions with humans in residential areas.
Bear hunting has long been controversial in Florida.
Black bears were placed on the state's threatened list in 1974, when there were between 300 and 500 across Florida. Until last year, there had been only one other hunt, in 2015, since bears were removed from the state's threatened list in 2012.
The state's 2019 Black Bear Management Plan included regulated bear hunting as a population-management tool, calling on FWC to use it in areas with the highest numbers of the animals.
The commission, which approved rules for the hunt during a public meeting in Havana in August after holding a hearing on the hunt in May at the College of Central Florida in Ocala, allowed up to 172 permits for the December hunt to be issued, with a limit of one bear per permit.
FWC Executive Director Roger Young in February called the hunt "a success," as all harvested bears were checked by biologists or contractors and met the size requirements, which stated that bears weighing less than 100 pounds were off limits.
Dempsey last November denied Bear Warriors' request to halt the hunt but allowed the lawsuit to continue.
Copyright 2026 WUSF 89.7