FWC receives 163,459 bear hunt applications
By Hayley Crombleholme
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ORLANDO, Florida (WESH) — So far, 163,459 applications have been submitted to take part in Florida’s first bear hunt in a decade.
Avid hunters like Chuck Echenique submitted multiple.
“I ended up submitting 50 applications across a couple of different locations,” Echenique said.
But it’s not just hunters who submitted applications, but also those opposed to it.
“I bought 105 applications or tickets myself, and we, along with the Sierra Club, had a large pitch around the state,” said Chuck O’Neal, president of Speak Up Wekiva and Speak Up for Wildlife.
He is one of the people who participated in a campaign to purchase permit applications in the hopes of preventing them from being allocated to actual hunters.
The Sierra Club used the slogan “Bag a tag and spare a bear,” encouraging and instructing people on how to buy a Florida hunting license and enter the bear tag lottery.
But the number of people who will actually be selected in that lottery is pretty small.
“We have a limited number of tags,” said George Warthen, chief conservation officer for Florida Fish and Wildlife. “Way more people want to get those tags than there are tags available.”
According to the FWC website, a total of 172 bear harvest permits will be issued across four different zones.
“They will be specific to a bear hunting zone, and that would be the zone that you could use your tag in. You wouldn’t be able to move to another zone,” Warthen said.
Central Florida’s zone has the fewest permits available at 18. The FWC reports that 49,649 applications were submitted for that zone.
WESH 2 asked those who entered the lottery how good they felt about their odds of getting one in any zone.
“They’re slim to none,” Echenique said. “I mean, you’ve only got 172 permits available.
“What do we think the odds are?” O’Neal said. “We think the odds are very good.”
FWC hasn’t said when people will find out if they were picked from the lottery to receive a permit. However, they said they will receive an email if selected, and they’ll have until Oct. 6 to claim it.
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