Bear Hunting may resume in Collier County Florida
Udut, Kenneth -- on Oct. 19 2008, from Golden Gate Estates, Naples, FLFounder of this Naples site of NeighborHelp Referrals.
Beware, ye bear! I think we'll still get our garbage knocked over, though. (them bears love us!)
NAPLES — They’ve been known to raid chicken coops, root through garbage and cause unsuspecting onlookers’ jaws to drop all over Southwest Florida.
They’re bears, Florida black bears, and their future is at risk as their nomadic wanderings intersect with the march of growth, according to a draft report by Florida wildlife officials.
The state report proposes a range of steps to reduce the conflicts between bears and humans _ from educating people about how to live with bears to studying whether to allow people to hunt them _ and sets goals for habitat preservation and black bear populations around the state.
Their future might be uncertain, but this much is for sure about Florida black bears, said Kipp Frohlich, imperiled species management leader of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“People either love them or, I wouldn’t say they hate them, but they’re darned tired of them if they’re dealing with conflict issues,” he said.
The Conservation Commission fielded 1,442 complaints about bears statewide in 2007, a 700 percent increase over the preceding 10 years and 3,500 percent increase over the preceding 20 years, according to state figures.
Most of the complaints stem from people leaving pet or livestock feed, garbage or other attractants such as fish parts, compost and barbecue grills where bears can get to them, state wildlife officials say.
The state report proposes to create at least 10 “bear-sensible areas” by 2018 to raise community awareness and understanding of bear habits and teach people to store food and trash and other temptations out of the reach of bears.
Collier County has seen an unexplained drop in bear complaint calls to the Conservation Commission in 2008 -- 38 calls compared to 87 in 2007 and 176 in 2002, according to state figures.
Theories pin the drop on everything from successful public education programs to a high rate of empty foreclosed homes in rural parts of the county.
In the past 10 years, sightings of black bears have been spreading from rural parts of Collier County to urban neighborhoods along Gordon Drive, The Shores along Santa Barbara Boulevard, Kings Lake, Lely Resort, Regent Park along Airport-Pulling Road and Riverwood Estates along Collier Boulevard south of U.S. 41 East.
The 2002 peak in bear complaints is attributable to the wanderings of a mother bear and two cubs who had parts of Golden Gate Estates around Collier Boulevard and Pine Ridge Road on edge that year, Naples-based Conservation Commission biologist Joe Bozzo said.
“It doesn’t take much for one bear to generate a lot of calls in a short time,” Bozzo said.
All three bears eventually were captured and sent to Osceola National Forest, on the edge of the Georgia-Florida line. The mother bear was shot and killed in Georgia; one of the cubs was euthanized after it became a threat in its new territory, Bozzo said.
Two bears have met untimely ends in Collier County this year.
In February, Conservation Commission officers found a bear along Janes Scenic Drive that had been shot to death. A second bear was found this summer shot along State Road 29 between Interstate 75 and the town of Copeland, Conservation Commission Capt. Jayson Horadam said.
He said the Conservation Commission and other groups plan to announce soon a reward for information that helps officers track down the bear killers.
The intentional killing or wounding of a Florida black bear, a threatened species, is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Bear hunting has been illegal throughout Florida since 1994, but the state’s draft report opens the door to reversing the prohibition, at least in some parts of Florida.
“Where high bear (population) densities can be identified as contributing to excessive negative human/bear interactions, actions designed to reduce bear numbers may be implemented,” the draft report says.
One of the draft report’s priorities is to “explore options regarding bear hunting as a tool to achieve target management objectives.”
Hunting bears on public land has been shown to be unsuccessful in reducing bear problems where humans live, Defenders of Wildlife Florida director Laurie Macdonald said.
Setting targets for subpopulations is a bad idea when the state’s black bear population still is recovering, she said.
“We don’t go for that,” she said.
One of the state’s largest and most stable populations of the wild roamers, estimated at between 500 and 900 bears, lives in the Big Cypress subpopulation that covers most of Collier County and a corner of southeastern Lee.
The draft report calls for maintaining the population at between 600 and 700 bears.
Wayne Jenkins, president of the Collier County Sportsmen and Conservation Club, said his group has always supported “sound hunting as a management tool.”
“So far as saying there’s enough to hunt, that’s something I’d leave to the biologists to tell us,” Jenkins said.
Frohlich, with the Conservation Commission, emphasizes the preliminary nature of the draft report.
“It’s a starting place,” Frohlich said. “We don’t really expect it to be the final place.”
44They’re bears, Florida black bears, and their future is at risk as their nomadic wanderings intersect with the march of growth, according to a draft report by Florida wildlife officials.
The state report proposes a range of steps to reduce the conflicts between bears and humans _ from educating people about how to live with bears to studying whether to allow people to hunt them _ and sets goals for habitat preservation and black bear populations around the state.
Their future might be uncertain, but this much is for sure about Florida black bears, said Kipp Frohlich, imperiled species management leader of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“People either love them or, I wouldn’t say they hate them, but they’re darned tired of them if they’re dealing with conflict issues,” he said.
The Conservation Commission fielded 1,442 complaints about bears statewide in 2007, a 700 percent increase over the preceding 10 years and 3,500 percent increase over the preceding 20 years, according to state figures.
Most of the complaints stem from people leaving pet or livestock feed, garbage or other attractants such as fish parts, compost and barbecue grills where bears can get to them, state wildlife officials say.
The state report proposes to create at least 10 “bear-sensible areas” by 2018 to raise community awareness and understanding of bear habits and teach people to store food and trash and other temptations out of the reach of bears.
Collier County has seen an unexplained drop in bear complaint calls to the Conservation Commission in 2008 -- 38 calls compared to 87 in 2007 and 176 in 2002, according to state figures.
Theories pin the drop on everything from successful public education programs to a high rate of empty foreclosed homes in rural parts of the county.
In the past 10 years, sightings of black bears have been spreading from rural parts of Collier County to urban neighborhoods along Gordon Drive, The Shores along Santa Barbara Boulevard, Kings Lake, Lely Resort, Regent Park along Airport-Pulling Road and Riverwood Estates along Collier Boulevard south of U.S. 41 East.
The 2002 peak in bear complaints is attributable to the wanderings of a mother bear and two cubs who had parts of Golden Gate Estates around Collier Boulevard and Pine Ridge Road on edge that year, Naples-based Conservation Commission biologist Joe Bozzo said.
“It doesn’t take much for one bear to generate a lot of calls in a short time,” Bozzo said.
All three bears eventually were captured and sent to Osceola National Forest, on the edge of the Georgia-Florida line. The mother bear was shot and killed in Georgia; one of the cubs was euthanized after it became a threat in its new territory, Bozzo said.
Two bears have met untimely ends in Collier County this year.
In February, Conservation Commission officers found a bear along Janes Scenic Drive that had been shot to death. A second bear was found this summer shot along State Road 29 between Interstate 75 and the town of Copeland, Conservation Commission Capt. Jayson Horadam said.
He said the Conservation Commission and other groups plan to announce soon a reward for information that helps officers track down the bear killers.
The intentional killing or wounding of a Florida black bear, a threatened species, is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Bear hunting has been illegal throughout Florida since 1994, but the state’s draft report opens the door to reversing the prohibition, at least in some parts of Florida.
“Where high bear (population) densities can be identified as contributing to excessive negative human/bear interactions, actions designed to reduce bear numbers may be implemented,” the draft report says.
One of the draft report’s priorities is to “explore options regarding bear hunting as a tool to achieve target management objectives.”
Hunting bears on public land has been shown to be unsuccessful in reducing bear problems where humans live, Defenders of Wildlife Florida director Laurie Macdonald said.
Setting targets for subpopulations is a bad idea when the state’s black bear population still is recovering, she said.
“We don’t go for that,” she said.
One of the state’s largest and most stable populations of the wild roamers, estimated at between 500 and 900 bears, lives in the Big Cypress subpopulation that covers most of Collier County and a corner of southeastern Lee.
The draft report calls for maintaining the population at between 600 and 700 bears.
Wayne Jenkins, president of the Collier County Sportsmen and Conservation Club, said his group has always supported “sound hunting as a management tool.”
“So far as saying there’s enough to hunt, that’s something I’d leave to the biologists to tell us,” Jenkins said.
Frohlich, with the Conservation Commission, emphasizes the preliminary nature of the draft report.
“It’s a starting place,” Frohlich said. “We don’t really expect it to be the final place.”
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