Save the Black Bear

LWVF Natural Resources Committee
League of Women Voters of Florida – Bear/Human Conflict - Public Comment - 6/24/2015

The League of Women Voters of Florida provided comment at the February meeting of the FWC concerning the depletion of a natural food source for black bears as a probable cause for increased bear/human conflicts.

Scientific studies by Howe and Obbard show that the number of bear/human conflicts is inversely proportional to the availability of natural food. If bears have a source of natural food, they tend not to risk confrontation with humans.

The natural diet of a black bear requires about a half ton of saw palmetto berries over the three month period prior to hibernation. In February, we expressed concern over migrant workers being paid to illegally harvest saw palmetto berries on state and federal lands.

Since that time we have learned that our assertion was false. The migrant workers were not illegally harvesting the berries, they were LEGALLY harvesting berries from public lands under Special Use Permits issued by the Florida Forest Service. The forest service has been selling permits to harvest the berries on public lands, indeed over one million acres of publicly owned lands, under a program to make state forests financially self-sustaining.

This poorly conceived directive to make state forests and state parks financially self-sustaining is in direct contradiction to generations of good stewardship by forward thinking public servants of both political parties. The depletion of the black bears natural food source may well have been the underlying cause for most if not all of the recent bear/human conflicts. And yet the FWC remains silent on this point in its press releases and public statements.

According to the FWC's own manual "Black Bear Habitat Management Guidelines for Florida," "Saw palmetto is likely the most important biotic component of the black bear habitat." "There is likely no other native mammal in Florida that depends on saw palmetto to the extent that the black bear does."

The prudent course of action would be to increase the availability of the black bear's natural food supply. Another report published by the FWC "Ecology and Management of Saw Palmetto" states: "Commercial harvest of palmetto berries from conservation lands should be prohibited until such time as regional berry crop monitoring programs have been developed and implemented."

Instead the FWC chooses to ignore its own scientific studies in favor of a bear hunt. Will a one week hunting season actually reduce the number of bear/human conflicts? Scientific research by Obbard et al. (2014) concluded "We found no significant correlations between harvest and subsequent HBC (human/bear conflicts). Although it may be intuitive to assume that harvesting more bears should reduce (human/bear conflicts), empirical support for this assumption is lacking despite considerable research."

Two hundred thirty nine years ago, at our nation’s founding, Jefferson penned these words: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Consent of the governed, an interesting concept.

In 1998, when 72% of the governed voted for Amendment 5 to create this very commission “for the purposes of management, protection, and conservation of wild animal life;” In 2014 when 75% of the governed voted for Amendment 1 to allocate funding “for conservation lands including wetlands, forests, and fish and wildlife habitat;” In 2015 when 75% of the public comments to the FWC stated that they wanted non-lethal measures to solve bear/human conflicts – we can only ask “What part of ‘consent of the governed’ don’t you understand?”

Chuck O’Neal, First Vice President
LWV of Florida
Lwvocnr@aol.com