Is the Florida Black Bear Still At Risk

[Rocky1]

I wasn't sure whether this one warranted the Church or the Humor section honestly... They live, they breed, they are amongst us y'all. And, it are damm scarry!!



Originally Posted By: The Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Is the Florida Black Bear Still at Risk?

BRISTOL, Fla. – The state’s black bear management plan was the topic of discussion Tuesday night at a public workshop here. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says Florida black bear numbers have increased and the bear should no longer be on the state’s list of threatened species.

Laurie Macdonald, director of Defenders of Wildlife’s Florida program, says her group is celebrating the bear’s progress, but she notes that several isolated sub-populations are struggling and facing issues such as inbreeding. She thinks the plan should do more to protect them.

“Be sure they bolster the habitat protection provisions; that they bolster the prevention of human-bear conflict provisions.”

Unless the state creates habitat links between the small black bear sub-populations, she says, they face extinction threats, shrinking the overall gene pool and undoing their progress. She adds that any plan will take cooperation from the public and other state agencies which oversee public lands and enforce laws.

Ensuring that bear populations are not affected by development, Macdonald says, means identifying lands that could be used as habitat to link the bears rather than separating them.

“We want to be sure that populations are not isolated and that they remain very healthy in their connection with the other subpopulations of bears.”


Defenders' Florida director Laurie Macdonald
Macdonald believes another key to bear survival in Florida is preventing human-bear conflict by education and enforcing laws that deter people from feeding bears.

“But if they continue to do it – they know what’s right and they’re not doing it, they’re doing what’s wrong – and they’re causing a bear to be a bad bear, then law enforcement needs to step in and prosecute.”

Defenders of Wildlife says intentional and unintentional feeding and not enforcing the law can result in bears damaging property, which often results in the death of the bear.

Information on the draft bear management plan and the three remaining workshops are online at myfwc.com. The next workshop is Nov. 29 in Naples.




Now they want to have you jailed if you fail to bear proof your garbage can/residence/whatever.

 

[Crimson Raptor]

After they have "connected" all the bear habitats and their numbers continue to increase, DOF will have ANOTHER reason why there should be no bear management program and will scream and protest accordingly.

To them game management is just another word for hunting and they want hunting gone - all hunting.

 

[Rocky1]

Going to try and make the meeting next week in Gainseville, and make a little noise, along with a whole bunch of other unruly neighbors that want a hunting season. Reading through their management plan again, and the logic in their numbers escapes me.

In 1974 there were supposedly only 300 bear left in the state, the bulk of which would of course have occupied the 4 major population subgroups, Appalachicola, Osceola, Ocala, and Glades/Highland. By 1984, their numbers supposedly only show a population of slightly double that according to their graph, but they state evidence suggested bear occupied 50 of 67 counties in the state.

I find that 1.) a rather remarkable rate of recovery since hunting seasons were still open at the time. 2.) a rather remarkable rate of dispersion of populations that hadn't exceeded the biological carrying capacity of their habitats, since all contain far greater numbers now. And, 3.) inaccurate data models or blatant lies to serve a cause.

Our hunting party killed 18 - 19 bear in Columbia County alone in 1974, found 4 - 5 sets of tracks the week after hunting season was over. Killed that many again the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that... Deer hunters usually took another 4 - 5 every year, always had a couple run over on the highway out here every year.

Their report states that a study done in 1980 that suggested you could kill 23% of the population, without seeing a decline in the population. We never saw a decline here in Columbia County from year to year. That would lead me to believe that the population on the Columbia County side of the Osceola Management Unit was close to 100 bear since 20 - 25 per year was not affecting the population. And, since the Baker County side has just as much bear territory, it is reasonable to assume there was approximately a hundred over there as well. Apalachicola has always had more bear than we have here, so we musta had all the bear in the entire state in these three units, and they just migrated in a hurry throughout the rest of the state.

I don't know why they call it science CR! I honestly don't!!Anyone with half a brain can read through it and it is full of so many holes, it is mind boggling.

 

[SkyPup]

I hunted Cypress Creek Wildlife Management area north of Occidental for many years in the early 70's (before it was a management area) for deer, turkey, and ducks and there were more black bear prints than there were deer up there on the west side of the Suwanee River!

 

[Rocky1]

Yeah, there still is SkyPup. Except, it's worse now than it was then. Neighbors hunt over there now, and they aren't happy with the bear situation in the least.

I grew up in the woods here, right across the river from Oxy. Bear population is off the charts today.

 

[SkyPup]

From the Woodpecker Route west to Jasper north and south of HWY 6 was covered with black bear....

 

[Rocky1]

Dude... you weren't but 9 miles from the house at the Woodpecker route! East 4 miles to 441, then 5 miles south!

 

[Rocky1]

Well I attended the big public meeting tonight, mostly Game and Fish folks there, few folks from the University of Florida there, handful of rednecks.

Everything remained fairly civilized with exception to one gentleman from over in the panhandle unloading on the FWC staff.

Said he had 12,000 acres leased to hunt, had to let part of it go this year, he can't find members. Too many bear that no one can shoot, not enough deer. Had Doctors and Lawyers as members, they brought their kids out to hunt; they're afraid to leave their kids alone on a stand anymore.

Told them they were suggesting 548 bear in that entire management unit, he was willing to bet there were that many on his lease. Said, "Last weekend, knowing I was coming to this meeting tonight, I gave everyone a scrap of paper and told them to write down what they saw. I had 21 hunters there that morning, we only covered 30% of the stands on our lease; 21 hunters saw 17 deer, and 35 bear!"

He went on to tell them he had a hunter shot his deer, drug him to the pickup and tried to load it. Said the old boy is 74 years old and he couldn't get it loaded. Hopped in the truck drove a quarter mile down the road and got his brother to help load the deer. Got back and the deer was gone. Got to looking around, finally heard something in the woods, and found a bear had drug his deer off and was eating it. Fired a shot, and the bear didn't move, they had to fire several more shots to run the bear off and recover the deer.

Had another incidence during primitive weapons season, hunter shot a doe with his muzzle loader. Before he could get turned around to get out of his stand, a bear ran out of the woods and grabbed his deer and started dragging it off. He reloaded as quickly as possible and fired another shot over the bear's head to run it off. Bear didn't drop the deer, he just ran faster. He said, "You people keep telling folks they're afraid of you, I'm here to tell you, they are not. They are losing their fear of man. You have a problem."

I told them I'd agree with that statement. Was in the woods 2 years ago, not another soul moving in the woods that afternoon. Pulled up to a gate, got out of the pickup, opened the gate, and as I turned to walk back to get in the truck a bear crossed the road less than 20 yards behind me. He wasn't in a hurry, he wasn't afraid in the least. He knew I was there, he heard me coming, he saw me at the gate, he still walked across the road like I wasn't there.

The old guy asked them if they had done any studies to determine how many fawn deer bear eat. They tried to play that one down. Suggested that they hadn't seen that here in Florida. He cited several studies, and said, "We have enough bear on our lease that they could eat every fawn on the property." He went on to state they had read that coyotes were hard on their fawn crop, so they decided to take up predator hunting. He said, "We were using a fawn in distress call to call coyotes; you think we got a bear to come to that fawn distress call? NO!!! We got 2 bear to come to the call. We have a problem gentlemen, and no one is addressing it!!"

I asked how difficult it would be introduce a hunting season with no provisions in the bear management plan. They said that a hunting season would be opened at the discretion of the wildlife commission only, that they could not open it themselves, the management plan is designed as a managment tool, it has to be in place to have the bear delisted. I told them I understood that, but it might be wise to set goals in the plan for hunting, to avoid having to study the population all over again to determine if a season was feasible.

At present they will readily admit that their numbers are conservatively low. Given the information presented in this meeting, I would guess their numbers are grossly unrealistic. Present day numbers are guesstimated only slightly higher than the estimates in their 2002 study, and that estimate is grossly unrealistic given the information presented. The entire state isn't being sampled, only select areas are being sampled, then computer models are used to determine suitable, marginal, and unsuitable habitat for bear. Any area the computer suggested there should be no habitat, or suggested there was inadequate habitat wasn't even given consideration for a bear population. Thus there are in reality many, many areas in the state that hold bear, but they don't reflect those numbers in their 2002 estimate.

And, given their 1980 study suggesting you could kill 23% of the population without seeing a decline in population, it would be only reasonable to assume therefore that a population is going to grow by 23% annually if no animals are taken. That being the case, numbers reflected in their 2002 study should have nearly tripled in the 11 years since the last study. However, they don't want to admit that those numbers might have doubled in that time. In fact they tried to play that suggestion down stating bear are slow reproducers, and the population couldn't have grown that much in 8 years.

One issue that kept popping up in discussion was loss of habitat. And, I pointed out that while this issue was repeatedly addressed, it was repeatedly addressed in respect to development of bear habitat, that they might also want to consider loss of habitat to herbicide use by the timber companies, mining operations, and other such factors that would not be typically seen as development. To which they questioned if I had any area in particular in mind, so I started naming them off. Couple of other rednecks jumped on that band wagon, and when I told them that, "Obviously these areas that have been herbicided do not now afford the 'biological carrying capacity' they did when the berry bearing plants on them existed." They all lit up because I was speaking in biologists' terms.

It was an interesting meeting to say the least; I would like to say it was more promising than it was, but... All I can tell you guys at this point is, we're going to have to make a whole helluva lot of noise if we want a hunting season.

I did ask to be considered for the North Unit Advisory Group after the meeting was over, and they said the way to be considered is to volunteer. As a hunter anda beekeeper, I have multiple interests, so we'll see.

 

[OldTurtle]

Rocky, Sometimes I wonder how much time these academics actually spend out in the field, on a state wide basis...They seem to be really good at obtaining sample information and then retreating to their computer models to generate questionable information...

Other than trying to justify their preconceived positions for some form of management program, or lack thereof, that usually doesn't include hunting, they seem oblivious to actual reports from local land owners...

 

[Rocky1]

A computer model, much like a computer, is only as intelligent as the individual inputting information OT. It doesn't matter what they find, they will only input information that serves their needs. And, no matter what information they input, one side or the other is probably going to yell at them.

At this time their goal is to have the bears delisted; that's a step in the right direction, because we can't have a hunting season with them on the threatened species list. Beyond that they honestly don't know, they're so wrapped up in their misinformation and their false beliefs in their numbers that they truly don't have a clue what is out here.

 

[Crimson Raptor]

Thanks for the update, Rocky.

I think one of the things that factors heavily into their decision is politics - meaning public resistance to hunting bears. On my side of the state, we have a heavy influence of the New England mentality. Anti-hunting with a heavy dollop of anti-gun, but we have made some converts. And they are a HUGE voting bloc. Nothing noisier to a politician than a whiney New Yorker (no offense to non-whiny NY'ers).

I once called up my regional FWC biologist and asked him why bobcat wasn't listed on all WMAs due to their obvious healthy numbers in our area. His answer was short and to the point - "It's political. People like bobcats", he said.

The problem isn't just antis - I have talked to many fellow sportsman in the field (and I'm sure some on this forum) who don't think bobcat is legitimate game. There truly is a different perception about bobcats.

I can only imagine that bears rate even higher with people down here. Just my observation and I believe the bear issue is going to take years to evolve.

 

[Rocky1]

Actually I don't see the bear issue taking that much longer CR, bears are large critters, they do become a nuisance and when they do, they do substantial damage to things. While many people have the warm cuddly creature image in mind, many more have the "them critters is gonna eat someone" image in theirs. Fact is, the latter will come into play soooner or later. Prior to that however, there are going to be a whole lot of redneck folks get real disenchanted with bears when they start having to pay $200 for a garbage can.

Bears are cute cuddly creatures until they start showing up in town on a real regular basis. Folks start seeing 300 lb meat eating creatures on their back porch eating fluffy's dog food, and they'll become disenchanted real quick. Doesn't take but a few on the back porch, and breaking into homes, and opinions start swaying. Doesn't have to be the whiny NY types that sway either, all you have to do is sway enough opinions to get large numbers of people to start screaming to influence the politics.

Biggest problem area for Game and Fish is the Ocala/St Johns management area, 3000+ complaint calls to FWC annually for the last 3 years. It's not that far to Orlando from the south border of the Ocala National Forest, they're already seeing problems in Sanford, (the St Johns River runs through it). Tourist Capital of the world starts seeing bears in town, bears there make the national news a time or two, and politics are going to say we need a bear season before we lose a tourist over fear of being eaten.

Back when they ran cows in the woods, years and years ago, cows were a large part of the bears' diet. As the population grows and the bears start moving out of the woods into more marginal habitat, we're going to see a larger and larger incidence of livestock predation, where are all the high dollar horse farms in the state??? Ocala!

Likewise hunters are really getting fed up with the bear situation. They're pretty much carrying the load on feeding the damm things, and no one can shoot them. License sales start falling off, Game and Fish starts looking at loss of income, politics start saying we need a hunting season. No hunters feeding deer, bears have less corn to eat in the woods, they're going to come out of the woods looking for food. That in turn means more livestock predation, more $200 trashcans, more human/bear confrontations.

In the November 10 FWC press release, there was discussion of a hunting season as early as 2015 in certain areas. My guess would be they are already feeling the heat in the Ocala area CR. The Panhandle is going to be next on the list, and folks over there are close to the capital!! You get folks that are fed up to start screaming at Senators and Congressmen, on a regular basis, and the Wildlife Commission is going to figure out in a hurry that there's a problem.

In accordance with the Black Bear Management Plan, 2015 would be the earliest the Game Commission could approve a hunting season in the state. Personally, I think it's already in the works, they just aren't admitting it for the sake of politics.