Florida’s first black bear hunt since 2015 is set to open in December, and activists are buying up bear tags in hopes of saving the bruins.
Anti-hunting groups are encouraging people enter the lottery-style drawing for 187 bear tags in Florida.
The Sierra Club of Florida launched its "Bag a Tag, Save a Bear" campaign this month urging supporters to buy up all the tags.
"Now through Sept. 22, let’s buy up all the bear tags and keep them OUT of hunters’ hands," the organization said on X (formerly Twitter).
The tags cost $100 for residents and $300 for non-residents.
Similarly, when Wyoming was on the cusp of a grizzly hunting season in 2018, wildlife photographer Tom Mangelsen entered the 18-tag lottery and drew a grizzly tag. He planned to hunt grizzlies with a camera, not a rifle.
Mangelsen told Cowboy State Daily that he was one of four people opposed to the hunts who drew tags.
A federal judge’s court order shut down that hunt down at the last minute. Grizzlies remain under federal Endangered Species Act protection in the Lower 48.
Delisting Could Happen Soon
However, there is a renewed push to have grizzlies delisted, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department would likely open a grizzly season if delisting goes through.
Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce openly supports delisting grizzlies. So did her predecessor, Brian Nesvik, who is now director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
If delisting goes through and a hunting season is set, Mangelsen said he would “definitely” put in for a grizzly tag again.
Last Bear Tag Effort Not Effective
Avid hunter Bruce Cooper of Bondurant was a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) enforcement officer during the last Florida bear hunts.
Anti-hunters buying bear tags “happened last time too,” Cooper, now retired, told Cowboy State Daily.
Back then, the buy-a-tag, save-a-bear tactic apparently didn’t work well, he said.
“It wasn’t so apparent that it affected anything,” Cooper said.
There were anti-hunting protests at the stations where hunters came to check in the bears they’d killed, he said.
He doesn’t think that would happen in Wyoming, because the culture is more favorable to hunting here.
“You have many people there who have never been introduced to hunting and do not believe that animals should be taken for food or for sport. It’s a night and day difference between Florida and the Western states,” Cooper said.
Outfitted Photo Hunt
For the 2018 hunt that ended up not happening, Mangelsen said he went so far as to hire an outfitter to take him out on an actual hunt, though he’d pack a camera instead of a rifle.
As he recalled, the 18 hunters who drew grizzly tags weren’t allowed to go out all at once. Instead, each hunter got a 10-day hunting period, and he was seventh in line.
The plan was for the outfitter to fill his elk tag. Once all the edible meat had been removed, the remainder of the carcass would be left to attract grizzlies.
Then Mangelsen could have sat at a safe distance and photographed the bears to his heart’s content.
With Quotas, Tag Sales Might Not Matter
Wyoming Wildlife Advocates Executive Director Kristin Combs told Cowboy State Daily that she opposes grizzly delisting and hunting.
And if she’d be willing to put in for a grizzly hunting tag to save a bear.
However, she’s not sure how much traction an anti-hunting bear tag buying effort would gain if Wyoming ever has a grizzly season.
Some predator hunts are run on a quota system, meaning that the number of tags sold wouldn’t have much of an effect the number of animals killed, she said.
Under that system, only a set number of animals, or quota, can be killed in any particular hunt area. Once the quota is met, the hunt shuts down in that area, regardless of how many people are left holding unfilled tags.
Game and Fish can’t comment on how tag allocations would be handled for possible future grizzly hunts, agency spokeswoman Amanda Fry stated in an email to Cowboy State Daily.
“Wyoming does not currently have a grizzly bear hunting season because the species is still listed as federally threatened. Due to this, we cannot provide a definitive answer on how hypothetical situations such as unused licenses for this species would be handled,” she stated.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
