Florida won't release the number of bears killed in state sanctioned culling.

[Baitball Blogger]

Why it matters: A number of pro-bear activists tried to improve the bear's chances by putting their names in for the lotto for bear killing licenses. The concept was to lower the number of people who actually planned to shoot bears. This was publicly known, which i thought was a miscalculation. Because now we don't know how many bears were killed. Presumably, it should be far less than the last time the cullings took place.

This is the link to the Orlando Sentinel article. It's only available to subscribers which I'm not so I couldn't copy four paragraphs.


https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/12/29/floridas-bear-hunt-ended-sunday-state-wont-say-how-many-were-killed/

[Buns_of_Fire]

1. Archive page:

https://archive.ph/t7pZj

[Mike Nelson]

2. Unless they pose a danger, why kill bears?

[Greg_In_SF]

3. Just had a

black bear in my driveway last night.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Faster than the average bear.

[flvegan]

4. Just a guess: fudging the numbers

So a total of 172 permits were issued lottery style, with each permit allowing said holder to kill one bear. Of those 172, I think 43 (last number I heard) were obtained by activists/real conservationists who specifically applied for them to keep bears from getting killed. So, max of 130 killed at one per permit.

Considering that some of these "hunters" aren't the best and brightest and might see challenges counting to 1, I'm guessing the number of bears may have come in over 130. OR the very flipside, and there just weren't as many bears as the FWC thought should be available to kill, and the numbers were very low.

Since the imbeciles at the FWC want to make this an annual thing, the numbers have to be there. Not high, not low.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. My fear is that they added a few more bodies to make up for the 43 who never planned to kill them.

Like I said, I think it was a huge mistake to advertise this strategy.

[flvegan]

9. Yeah, that's what I mean.

The math will come out that the bears killed plus the 43 or so activist permits will be greater than the number of permits issued.

Going public with the activists' strategy was never my idea. Keep it quiet, let them hang themselves very publicly when the numbers come in. Lying about the numbers/killing too many bears, that's the headline and additional grounds for next year's court case against the hunt.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Well, I guess set up some non-invasive traps, to monitor the number of bears detected...

They did this in our area around the SW edge of the Lake of the Ozarks region (Bennett Springs MO) to count the number of bears detected and the mechanism they used was very simple. Hang a trap over a tree limb, high enough for other critters (not bears) couldn't get into the traps, and then they went back later and counted the traps that were empty of bear bait.

Highway 64 (Missouri state highway, the main 2-lane road to Bennett Springs MO), going from Lebanon MO through Plad MO)...Bear Traps on Interstate Highway 64 ... There are no regular patterns of bear traps reported in larger cities, such as on Interstate Highway 64. Intra-city bear traps are not reported in larger cities, and no regular pattern is identifiable other than at the outskirts near the city limits. MO.gov

For my part, my land (and folks') bordered Highway OO, an offshoot off of highway 64, and I would often times walk during the evening down our gravel road. I did get a little bit nervous, but not because of the bears, but because of the coyotes, wild dogs (people would often times, dump their animals down there, a very sad thing to see. All of us down there have adopted tons of animals abandoned down there.

[madinmaryland]

6. I thought this was about Florida Man killing beers on state land. And then wondering

If they left the trash and empty cans that had been killed had not been picked up and disposed of properly.

Then I put my glasses on a read it was about bears (not drinking beer)

[Emile]

10. Hamm's bears

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