After receiving his Ph.D. in 1988 from Virginia Tech University, Eric Hellgren held research and academic appointments at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and at Oklahoma State University before moving to Southern Illinois University-Carbondale as Director of the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory and Professor of Zoology in fall 2005. As of August 2013, he is Chair of the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida. His research program focused on the ecology and population dynamics of mammals (e.g., rodents, carnivores, ungulates) and selected reptiles, with additional interests in mammalian nutrition and physiology. Dr. Hellgren has published more than 140 peer-reviewed publications, including papers in Ecology, Ecological Applications, Conservation Biology, Oecologia, Oikos, Biological Conservation, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, Journal of Wildlife Management, and Journal of Mammalogy; and 6 book chapters. He has served as an Associate Editor of several serial publications and is currently Editor of Wildlife Monographs for The Wildlife Society.
By Eric Hellgren, PhD
Chair, University of Florida Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
The black bear (Ursus americanus) is one of Florida’s most charismatic large mammals. The history of the species since European settlement in the 16th century has been a bit of a rollercoaster; the original range of the species was believed to cover the entire state, but it has now been reduced to 7 subpopulations with limited connections between them. The upcoming hunting season on black bears, administered by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), has raised a number of questions and been the subject of much debate. It is not surprising that there is debate: black bears were hunted legally in Florida from 1936 to 1994, yet the species was listed as state-threatened from 1974 to 2011. Why hunt now? In this blog, I would like to place the hunting season into the larger perspective of a comprehensive management strategy for black bears. The “Conflict” in the title has a dual meaning: conflict between bears and humans, and conflict between stakeholders on either side of the hunting issue.
It is important to note that the FWC is responsible for the management of the species and is working from a statewide management plan. This plan was developed by 2 separate teams of FWC staff, consulted upon by a Technical Assistance Group of stakeholder group representatives, commented on by the Florida public, and approved in 2012. From my perspective as a research scientist who has studied bears since 1984, the plan is comprehensive, with objectives related to sustainable populations, habitat conservation, reduction of human-bear conflicts, and education of Florida citizens about bears.
Regulated hunting is a key component of modern wildlife management. For many species, it is the main tool used for population management. Depending on the species and location, hunting provides sporting opportunity, utilization of a renewable resource (e.g., food, fur), and population control. Hunting bears in Florida can provide all 3 of these results, as well as generate funds from hunting license sales for improved research and management.
Human-bear conflicts have reached a critical point in the state. It is intuitive to think that hunting, by reducing population size, should reduce conflicts between humans and bears. However, opponents of hunting rightfully state that there is no strong evidence that hunting black bears leads to reductions in bear nuisance activity. Several studies published in the scientific literature have failed to link hunter take with reductions in human-bear conflict. On the other hand, these studies are plagued by small samples, designs that do not include experimental controls (for example, what would have happened to nuisance activity if no hunting had taken place?), and confounding variables, like availability of natural food. If natural food is scarce, increases in both hunter harvest and nuisance activity are often seen as bears take more risks to obtain adequate nutrition.
The FWC recognizes the lack of a solid correlation between human-bear conflicts and hunting. It is well-known that unsecured human garbage is closely linked to many bear-human interactions. Consequently, they have invested significant resources into changing human behavior related to waste management via education of the public and municipal policy-makers. The intent of this effort is to reduce the attractiveness of human property to bears. The FWC have hired several new staff to help deal with a rapid rise in human-bear conflicts, which include 4 incidents of bears injuring people and greater than 200 bears/year killed by vehicles during the last 2 years. The relative lack of media attention on these agency actions compared to the attention focused on the upcoming hunting season may not be surprising because of the strong feelings associated with hunting, but waste management is key in reducing human-bear conflicts.
Based on my experience as a bear researcher and discussions with bear scientists around the country, I think the FWC has embarked on a smart, well-intentioned management path for black bears. Like much wildlife management, this path represents an experiment that will answer a number of questions. For example: Will improved waste management reduce bear-human conflicts? Will hunting reduce bear deaths caused by vehicle collisions?
New questions also will arise. Notably, if conflicts decrease, was the decrease due to waste management, hunting, or some combination of both? I hypothesize that in the long-term, it will be a combination of both. Waste management will target nuisance bears, especially at the interface of urban/suburban areas and wildlands. Hunting, on the other hand, generally will focus on bears in large areas of forested habitat such as Wildlife Management Areas or private land. However, over time, increased mortality of bears from hunting will slow population growth (estimated to be 30% between 2002 and 2014 in central Florida alone!). In turn, there should be fewer bears dispersing from large blocks of conserved habitat into suburban and urban settings, which also will be less attractive to bears as a result of improved waste management. Time will tell and FWC management will need to be adaptive to unexpected responses by the bear population. .
Conflict aside, I think that all stakeholders and managers are focused on the same objective: conservation of black bears in Florida for the foreseeable future. Recovery of the species has been a conservation success story; habitat protection was a large part of that success. Indeed, it has been such a success that today, coupling hunting with conflict management is an approach that appears needed to balance public safety, property protection, and resource use with sustainability of the statewide bear population.
Guest blogger disclaimer: The PIE Center provides the blog as a forum for the discussion of issues related to agriculture and natural resources and recruits outside contributors in the form of guest bloggers. These bloggers appear under this disclaimer and must meet the PIE Center’s mission and vision. The opinions expressed by guest bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of the PIE Center, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences or the University of Florida. The PIE Center is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest bloggers.
Well balanced article proving/supporting much of what we already knew…
Well balanced article informing the urbanite, emotionally driven masses of FACTS which people who are truly immersed in “All things wild” have known
I agree that hunting will re-instill fear into any animal. Many animals begin to realize that humans are not a threat after repeated encounters with no action or reaction. With large potentially dangerous animals some sort of perceived threat must present to limit harmful or fatal interaction. Gator attacks are on the rise and hunting should be allowed in refuges and other protected areas. After a year or two of hunting bear the animal’s awareness will result in a flight reaction when encountering humans. This has worked with gators on areas such as Lake Talquin. Before gator hunting the animals were frequently boat ramps and swimming up to boats now a gator makes a quick exit when people are present. Likewise, in the St. Marks refuge the gators will follow and pursue people in hope of a fish or dog meal. Good job on the bear action in Florida.
Dr. Mr. Hellgren:
You mentioned Florida Stakeholders were represented. Not any from the Lee-Hendry Collier areas that I was involved with wanted Bear Hunts. So how were we represented??? And the Tampa Tribune cites some of the FWC voting Board of Commissioners bought Bear Kill permits. That sounds like it would be a conflict of interest. And the big land owners, Ranchers and Hunters would decide the fate of our Bears. We were told over and over in Stakeholder meetings that Killing the Bears has not proved to reduce conflict between Humans and Bears. Bears hidden deep in the woods will be hunted down, even though they never came to the garbage waste left out by humans. Over 40,000 spoke in opposition of the Bear Hunts. Were any of them heard? This Native American is rightfully sickened to see what has been done to these Bears. They don’t belong to the FWC to destroy, they belong to the Florida Citizens who care about them and their existence, not humans without compassion.
You raise many interesting and worthwhile hypotheses here. Unfortunately I have not see a well-planned research program to test these hypotheses in relation to implementing hunt pressure. .The FWC could have set this up as a large landscape scale quasi-experiment where long-term data on bear movements and demography, in response to treatments including hunting pressure, population size, landscape configuration, and effective implementation of trash control could have been collected. Without a clear research strategy this is not truly science based. Missed opportunity.