At 10 a.m. Friday, Lance Van Dina was ready. The Sunrise resident opened the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission website and bought 30 tickets in the lottery to hunt a Florida black bear.
Applications are now open through Sept. 21 to participate in the second consecutive year of the controversial hunt. The season will run from Dec. 5 to Dec. 28.
Last year's season was the first since 2015 and sparked widespread backlash from animal rights organizations. Now, it returns with more permits and new rules around private land use.
The FWC is offering 215 permits this year, up from 172 last year. This time, about a tenth of those permits — or 22 — will go to large private landowners with bear populations. The remainder could go to anyone who submits a $5 application. People can submit as many entries as they like, and each gives the winner a chance to harvest one bear.
Animal rights activists last year held long and often contentious debates over the hunt, buying up about one-third of the permits themselves to keep them from hunters' hands. They said the state's largest land mammal, once listed as a threatened species, didn't have a large enough population to sustain what many described as a "trophy hunt."
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But hunters like Van Dina say they hunt to eat, not simply to kill. Last year, Van Dina successfully secured a permit and harvested a female adult bear in Collier County. He's still cooking meals from the kill, including its meat, ribs, and even fat to make tallow.
"I try to use the whole thing of the animal when I hunt, so nothing really goes to waste," he said.
People whose names are drawn will have a two-week window to buy a permit that costs $100 for Florida residents and $300 for out-of-state participants. Non-Florida participation is capped at 10%.
Last year, the agency received over 163,000 permits from 15,000 individuals. Each could apply to hunt in one of four specified zones. The South Florida harvest zone includes much of Collier County but does not extend east to Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach or Monroe.
Sarah Younger, the chair of the Sierra Club's Conservation Committee, says she doesn't oppose hunting when it comes to species like pythons. But there's no evidence that bears are overpopulated in the state, she said.
Activists say FWC data showing a 53% statewide increase in bear populations since 2002 is outdated, because it was collected between 2014 to 2015. Population counts often take a decade to complete, in order to avoid double-counting animals.
Bear hunts in the state ended in 1994, when populations dipped dangerously low, returned for one year in 2015, and were banned again until last year.
Younger said she hopes to build on last year's success, when she estimates activists bought up about 52 hunting permits, preventing that number of bears from being killed. The Sierra Club is encouraging people to buy as many entries as possible and offering financial support to help them do so.
"We do not support this bear hunt, as it is not scientific," Younger said. "There is no reason to imagine that bears are overpopulated in these areas, and any human bear interactions can easily be avoided with appropriate measures like securing your trash."
Younger described reserving tickets for large landowners as "invading bears" on private land. She also criticized the FWC's allowing these people to bypass the standard lottery.
But Mark Barton, a Palm Beach County hunter who holds a doctorate degree in ecology, said a similar program has been in place for deer hunting for decades. Landowners can hire their own biologists to come out and assess the property, suggesting ways to improve it to sustain bear populations, he said.
"It's just an incentive for landowners to make sure that there's more bear habitat out there," he said. "Which at the end of the day is only going to help the bears."
Unlike last year, there were no public hearings, which often grew contentious as conservationists and others gathered to share their views. Barton said he's heard less buzz about this year's hunt. He attributes the quieter rollout to last year's success, which he said proved concerns wrong.
Though 172 tags were allocated last year, just 52 bears were killed. The hunt generated over $830,000 for the FWC in permit and application fees.
"When you look at the numbers, I don't see how you could possibly describe this as anything but a success," Barton said.
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