Florida Is Expanding Its Trophy Hunt for Black Bears

The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission has released its 2026 black bear hunting quota, and this year the state will allow even more bears to be killed. FWC will issue up to 215 permits for the hunt, up from the 172 issued in 2025. Of those, 193 will go through the public lottery, and 22 will be set aside for a new program that lets qualifying private landowners hunt bears on their own property.

To qualify for the new Private Lands Bear Harvest Program, landowners need to meet a set of requirements, including owning at least 5,000 contiguous acres with documented bears on the land. And while the statewide hunt runs December 5–27, hunting on these private properties will be allowed from October 1 through December 31, nearly three months, more than double the length of the public season. The extra time isn't about wildlife management. It's a longer window to hunt bears for sport on private land. The Sierra Club Florida has criticised the program as "an exclusive, privatized trophy hunt system."

Florida's black bear hunt was reinstated in 2025 after being banned for a decade following the 2015 hunt, when over 300 bears were killed in just two days. The decision to bring the hunt back was widely opposed by conservation organizations, who argued it wasn't based on sound science and contradicted Florida's own data showing that protecting bears and restoring their habitat is the most effective way to maintain a healthy population.

That opposition showed up in a big way. Florida residents and animal advocates across the state and beyond banded together to secure as many bear hunting permits as possible, submitting more than 163,000 applications from nearly 15,000 people. As a result, only 52 of those 172 permits led to a kill in 2025, sparing more than 100 bears.

But 52 bears still lost their lives. And at least one of those bears was killed with a bow and arrow, a method that can result in a prolonged and painful death when an animal is wounded rather than killed immediately. For these shy and elusive animals, there is nothing humane or necessary about being killed for sport.

The increase in hunting permits is especially hard to justify next to the other threats Florida's bears already face. In Central Florida alone, motor vehicles have killed 1,545 bears over the past decade, including 219 in 2025. That region is home to an estimated 1,400 bears, and yet the state is making 21 hunting permits available there this year.

Now we're calling on our supporters to once again do their part. The bear hunting permit lottery opens today, September 11, and stays open through September 21. You do not need to be a Florida resident, or even a U.S. resident, to enter. However, no more than 10% of permits may go to non-residents, and hunting licenses cost significantly less for Floridians, so please share this information with everyone you can in the Sunshine State. The steps to enter the 2026 lottery have been updated on the Species Unite Florida Black Bear Hunt petition page.

Even if you can’t enter the bear hunt lottery, you can make a difference by sending a letter to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis asking him to shut down the hunt and by letting your contacts in Florida know they have an important opportunity to stand up for bears by entering this year's lottery.