The Central Florida-based nonprofit Bear Warriors United filed a lawsuit Friday against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, two days after the agency’s unanimous vote approving a regulated bear hunting season in the state.
The complaint argues the new bear hunt rule approved by FWC “is not grounded on any scientifically based recommendation and is set at the whims of the executive director or designees,” rather than the agency’s seven, constitutionally-appointed commissioners.
An initial, 23-day bear hunting season is slated to begin Dec. 6, the first Saturday of the month. From there, bear hunting season dates will fluctuate annually based on population numbers and management objectives, always between Oct. 1-Dec. 31, according to the agency.
RELATED: State wildlife commissioners vote unanimously for a bear hunt in Florida
Raquel Levy is a lawyer representing Bear Warriors United. She said, while she owns a personal injury law firm in Volusia County, she volunteers as an animal rights attorney and is taking on the case against FWC pro bono.
“Our position is that conservation does not begin and end with a bullet,” Levy said.
A chief complaint in the lawsuit is that FWC’s bear hunt rules break the agency’s own rules about due process. That concern was raised by several members of the public, including other attorneys, at FWC’s meeting in Havana earlier this week.
Moving forward after this year’s hunt, future bear hunt specifics will be determined by FWC’s executive director or a designee, rather than the agency’s seven commissioners. Those specifics include decisions about where “bear hunting zones” should be located and how many hunting permits the agency should dole out for the year.
The Bear Warriors United lawsuit argues that “by removing the bear hunt decision to the ‘executive director or designee,’ the public is denied the due process to be heard concerning the issue and to have the constitutionally appointed officers make the decision.”
Many people at Wednesday’s FWC meeting spoke out against the bear hunt, but many others said they were in favor of it. Mark Barton with Florida’s chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers said he has a PhD in ecology. According to the science he’s reviewed, Florida’s bear population is thriving and can sustain a hunt, Barton said.
“I think I speak on behalf of most hunters when I say that we really want to see this population continue to grow,” Barton said. “A hunt will allow us to use this resource to generate tremendous amounts of funding that can help the bear population grow.”
Each “bear harvest permit” will cost $5 to apply for under the new rule, and although only one permit will be awarded per person, hunters can apply as many times as they want. The permits, a specified number of which will be awarded through a lottery process, will cost $100 for Florida residents and $300 for non-residents.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit argues that, by filing notice of a proposed rule without supporting methodology or scientific facts supporting the need for a bear hunt, FWC “failed to materially follow the law.”
“The decision to hunt bears is not backed up by science,” Levy said.
Levy said she filed the lawsuit Friday, on her daughter’s 17th birthday. Bella Schwartz is in a paralegal training program and assisted with some research for the lawsuit. Schwartz spoke at the FWC meeting Wednesday and has previously spoken against overdevelopment in other public forums.
“There's actually many ways to coexist with bears. The solution isn’t shooting them,” Schwartz said.
On Wednesday, Levy urged FWC commissioners not to write off bear hunt opponents as “bleeding hearts.” In reality, many are “conservatives for conservation,” she said.
But ultimately, Levy said, the question of whether or not to hunt bears shouldn’t rest on someone’s political affiliation.
“Having a moral compass, and the ability to see right from wrong when it's very black and white and very clear, should be a bipartisan issue,” Levy said. “What's happening right now with this bear hunt is intuitively a horrible, horrible atrocity.”
FWC doesn’t comment on active litigation, according to an agency spokeswoman.
Read the complaint filed on behalf of Bear Warriors United:
