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Two weeks ago, SAF filed a friend of the court brief urging a Tallahassee court not to halt Florida’s first bear hunt in a decade. Last night, the court agreed with SAF. The bear hunt will begin on December 6, as scheduled.

The same legal tactics were tried, and similarly failed, during Florida’s 2015 bear hunt.

From the bench Judge Dempsey said, “That 2015 hunt was found constitutional under the rational basis test, and this hunt is significantly more conservative than that hunt … both in number of bears that could be harvested, as well as the timing, when it’s a little less likely for more female bears to be killed.”

“This is a great win for hunters and science-based wildlife management,” said Michael Jean, Litigation Counsel for the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation. “The court considered the science and the fact that the Florida Constitution gives the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission exclusive authority to manage the state’s wildlife. It then held that the Plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on the merits. We couldn’t ask for more.”

The bear hunt is scheduled to begin on December 6 and will end on December 28. Read more

Safari Club International is proud to share that a Florida court has denied a temporary injunction to stop Florida’s highly regulated black bear hunt. SCI’s legal intervention in Florida has helped secure the future of this important hunt, which will begin to manage Florida’s expanding bear population and reduce human-bear conflicts and vehicle collisions.

The hunt, approved by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) in August, was put at risk when anti-hunting groups filed a lawsuit to overturn the decision. After plaintiff Bear Warriors United sued to stop the hunt, SCI immediately moved to join in the case to protect the state’s first black bear hunt in a decade.

SCI and Florida’s wildlife management authority have fought this lawsuit with the facts. Florida’s bear population is healthy, and the FWC’s approved hunt is conservative and backed with sound science. Ultimately, the court recognized the FWC’s right to rely on a regulated hunt as a wildlife management tool and recreational opportunity. The court also agreed with SCI’s arguments that the plaintiff failed to provide credible evidence against the hunt. With these successful arguments, the season will proceed as scheduled on December 6, 2025.

Although this ruling is a major victory, anti-hunters are still attempting to undermine the hunt by purchasing tags with no intention of using them. The FWC has only allocated a conservative 172 black bear tags for this year’s hunt. All of them will be needed if Floridians want to stem the rising number of human-bear conflicts and the 300-plus vehicle strikes the state sees every year. Florida’s black bear population continues to grow rapidly, leading to more dangerous encounters, including a fatal attack this past summer. SCI urges Floridians to recognize the urgency of this hunt and to continue supporting science-based wildlife management to maintain the state’s ecological balance.

“Hunting plays an essential role in maintaining animal populations and conserving wildlife around the world,” said SCI CEO W. Laird Hamberlin. “The fight for legal black bear hunting in Florida perfectly crystallizes this fact, which is why SCI is one of the only organizations deploying money and time to tip the scales in the fight to defend hunters’ rights in the courtroom. SCI’s premier legal defense team will always be first in line to thwart radical and frivolous anti-hunting litigation.” Read more