Florida’s first black bear hunt in a decade is now over, and the results are clear: this experiment should never be repeated.

From December 6 to 28, 2025, the state issued 172 permits and killed 52 Florida black bears. These animals were taken not because they posed an immediate danger, but because Florida chose to reopen a trophy hunt based on decade-old population data and a deeply divisive approach to wildlife management. For many Floridians, this season was not about conservation — it was about spectacle, suffering, and a failure to listen.

The hunt exposed deep public unrest. Dozens of animal-rights advocates entered the lottery system solely to prevent bears from being killed, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively just to keep permits out of hunters’ hands. 

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has defended the hunt as a “success,” yet most permit holders never killed a bear. 52 innocent animals were taken, undermining claims that hunting is necessary to manage bear populations or reduce conflicts. At the same time, the state continues to rely on population estimates last gathered between 2014 and 2015, despite massive development and habitat loss since then.

This hunt also reopened painful memories of 2015, when over 300 bears were killed in just two days, including nursing mothers. Florida promised it would do better this time. Instead, it delivered another season marked by controversy, moral outrage, and distrust.

Florida’s black bears are intelligent, social, and resilient animals. They belong in our forests and wetlands, not as targets in an annual lottery. Real solutions to human-bear conflict already exist: securing trash, protecting habitat, public education, and coexistence strategies that work without killing.

We call on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and state leadership to end black bear hunting permanently and commit to nonlethal, science-based conservation. No 2026 hunt. No future hunts.

Florida’s wildlife deserves protection. Sign this petition to make sure this never happens again.