February 16, 2026

Florida Wildlife Calls Bear Harvest ‘Successful’ Despite Anti-hunter Efforts to Derail

By Nephi Cole

Florida’s first permitted black bear hunt in a decade ended December 28, 2025, and the early data released this month underscores a point that outside influences and anti-hunting activists continue to ignore: regulated hunting is wildlife conservation, not a controversy. It is a management tool grounded in biology and science, executed under strict controls and it’s essential to keeping bear populations safely in balance with habitat while maintaining long-term public support for the species.

The hunt’s results were not a surprise to anyone focused on science rather than slogans. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials designed a conservative, highly regulated bear hunting season with careful permit limits, mandatory biological checks and an enforcement posture with a priority on education and compliance. The outcome? Despite the efforts of anti-science, anti-hunting activists attempting to highjack the hunt, meaningful data was collected, there was strong rule-following and compliance among hunters and in the end it was a successful harvest that remained below the statewide cap.

A Hunt Built on Data, Not Drama

Anti-hunters eager to thwart the black bear hunting season missed an opportunity to learn a great lesson: Florida’s black bear story is a modern conservation success story. Florida bears rebounded from just a few hundred in the 1970’s to more than 4,000 today; an achievement made possible by habitat recovery, modern wildlife management and a public that is willing to invest in conservation.

With populations expanding and bear-human interactions rising in several parts of the state, the commission returned to a limited hunt framework that many states use to keep bear numbers aligned with suitable habitat. The 2025 season created four Bear Harvest Zones within four Bear Management Units and set permit numbers using zone-level population estimates that totaled 3,609 bears across the areas open to hunting.

Participation was strong. The state received 163,459 applications from 14,996 individuals, then issued 172 permits by random draw. Florida residents bought 97 percent of those permits.

The Results? Conservative Harvest, Strong Compliance

According to Outdoor Life, over the 23-day season, 52 bears were harvested statewide. The commission calculated a minimum hunter success rate of 30.2 percent, noting that figure could rise as post-season survey data trickles in and are finalized.

Just as important as the headline number is what sits behind it. Bears were taken in all three weeks, avoiding the kind of compressed, chaotic outcome critics still cite from 2015. Harvest totals by zone were 28 in the East Panhandle, four in the North, five in the Central and 15 in the South — a distribution that aligns with the state’s zone structure and conservative permit design.

The data also rebut several empty and emotional claims circulated online by anti-hunting activists. Of the 52 bears harvested, 28 were male and 24 were female. Not a single harvested female was lactating, and all harvested bears met the hunt’s minimum size requirement of more than 100 pounds. Average estimated live weights were 345.2 pounds for males and 197.9 pounds for females, with the heaviest male weighing a whopping 697.4 pounds in Collier County.

Compliance was also notably high. The commission reported no warnings or citations for violations of bear-hunting rules and only one warning was issued for wildlife management area trespass. Every harvested bear was physically checked and sampled by a biologist or contractor, ensuring the harvest produced the kind of biological information wildlife managers utilize to refine future seasons.

Anti-hunters Lost, But Conservation Won

Opponents of Florida’s 2025 black bear hunt didn’t simply protest; they attempted to derail the hunt through litigation and by manipulating the permit process. A lawsuit filed by Bear Warriors United sought to halt the season, arguing the hunt was unlawful. Fortunately, the court denied Bear Warriors United’s challenge and did not stop the hunt and the season opened as scheduled on December 6, 2025. Activists also urged supporters to pay for thousands of tickets to enter the lottery as a way to keep permits from actual hunters, and some organizations acknowledged they were pursuing that strategy.

Then came an even more direct effort — offers to pay permit holders to sit out. Reports in regional and national outlets describe payments or offers in the thousands of dollars for hunters willing to surrender permits. That campaign may have affected participation, but it did not change the underlying fact that Florida’s wildlife agency set a conservative framework, hunters followed the rules and managers gathered critical data. Following those initial reports, wildlife agency officials said they’d simply adjust future harvest numbers to offset any of the anti-science shenanigans by the activists.

Hunting is Conservation and Critical to a Healthy Bear Population

This is the part outside influencers routinely omit: wildlife agencies do not “hunt bears.” They manage bears. Regulated harvest is one tool among many, used alongside habitat work, conflict response and public education. Florida’s own reporting emphasizes the role of conservative permit numbers, zone design and biological monitoring to support long-term bear health.

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is built on the idea that wildlife is a “user pays” public trust resource managed by professionals using science, and that regulated hunting can be a legitimate, sustainable management tool.

It is also a funding engine. At the national level, hunters and the broader shooting community help fund conservation through hunting and fishing license revenue and excise taxes that flow through the Pittman-Robertson program, which supports habitat, research and hunter education in states across the country.

In fact, Florida voters reinforced that framework in 2024 by approving a state constitutional amendment that recognizes hunting and fishing as a public right and a preferred means of responsibly managing fish and wildlife, while preserving the commission’s constitutional authority to manage wildlife.

Florida’s bear hunt results make the larger point plainly: science-based hunting can be tightly regulated, ethically executed and measurably beneficial. It reduces pressure on habitat, supports public safety by helping prevent unsustainable growth in conflict hotspots and — crucially — produces the biological data wildlife managers need to keep the bear population healthy for generations.

That is what conservation looks like, even when critics refuse to see it.

Prior to joining NSSF, Nephi Cole was Natural Resource Policy Advisor for former Wyoming Governor Matt Mead, a Conservation Biologist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and a Graduate of State University’s Environmental Soil and Water Science program. 

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