Does Development Sprawl Really Justify Bear Hunt? Not Really

A recent guest column regarding the upcoming decision by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on bear hunting has put an interesting spin on the issue.
George Warthen, chief conservation officer for FWC, appears to argue that the hunt will save the bears from the effects of urban sprawl.
“Bears have expanded their occupied range from 17% to 51% since 1992 and while we have enough habitat to support them now, we expect that to change in the future as bear and human populations continue to grow.” he writes.
Let that sink in a minute.
Put another way, it is saying lightly controlled urban, suburban and rural sprawl is increasing encroachment into occupied bear habitat provides the justification for the hunt.
The problem with that argument is the area he cites in the eastern Panhandle that contains an estimated 26% of the state’s bear population but only 3% of the state’s human population. About half of that is in and around Tallahassee.
Florida’s population is increasing in many parts of the state, but it does not seem to be happening in bear country that much. In other parts of Florida the picture is different.
It would be great to suggest, as many have, that more compact growth patterns would save wildlife and wildlife habitat, but our so-called leaders in Tallahassee have pretty much forbidden such crazy thinking.
Just this year the Legislature passed and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that prohibited enactment of tougher growth regulations, the latest in a downward path that began in the Rick Scott administration to dismantle Florida’s strong growth management laws.
What’s left of the former Florida Department of Community Affairs now resides in a cubicle or some such diminished space somewhere in the Florida Department of Commerce with no enforcement authority and little staff.
The other argument Mr. Warthen makes is that culling the populations of bears or any other declared game species is simply good wildlife management to prevent overpopulation, which technically could occur if more habitat encroachment were allowed.
Besides you get a bear skin rug for your den and some bear meat for the freezer, he added.
Meanwhile, he admits that the issue of human-bear conflicts involving unsecured trash and other attractions remains unresolved and is unrelated to the hunt though those issues were raised to justify the earlier hunt and legislation that allows people to kill bears if they feel threatened.
Add to that the passage of the constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to hunt is also being used as further justification, accompanied by the right to use dogs to pursue bears in some circumstances, which was not allowed in the last hunt.
Sierra opposed the amendment because it was too open-ended and would lead to what we are witnessing now.,
We hate to say we told you so, but we told you so.