Florida Black Bears will likely come off the States Endangered Animal List after the Florida Wildlife Comimission meets this week..........Hunters feel a "controlled hunt" will put fear in the Bears and keep them wary of humans..........Bears have not been hunted in Florida since 1994 and there are many wildlife advocates who feel the bears are still in the recovering stage and should not be delisted..........The State saids that hunting is not on the table immediately for the Bears and that a Management Plan would be put into effect so as to keep the Bear population viable into the long term........As readers of this blog know, I am not anti-hunting..............But here is a question that always comes into my mind when I hear hunters say that killing an animal puts fear into the remaining animals that survive...........Question: How does a dead Bear become fearful of humans?....If a Mother Bear is shot, her orphaned cubs usually end up being killed by other adult Bears...............so where is the learning taking place?????...........The other Bears in a given sector of habitat are not on the scene when one of their own is shot.................So I ask again,,,,,,,,who is learning? Where is the learning in this equation??????

State may kick black bear, 15 other species off imperiled list

 Florida wildlife managers insist bear hunting is not on the table, but the issue is likely to dominate the debate this week as they consider a massive overhaul of the state's endangered species list.

Sixteen mammals, reptiles, fish and birds are up for removal from the list when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meets Wednesday in St. Augustine. Among them are the black bear and several South Florida birds, including the brown pelican, snowy egret, limpkin and white ibis.

"It's great to be able to sit back as policymakers and stewards of the environment and say we've got some successes," commission chairman Rodney Barreto said. "There is a lot to be thankful for."

The state endangered species list is significant because other government agencies incorporate it into rules and decisions such as whether to approve a housing development.

Adding to its importance this year was the decision by Gov. Rick Scott and the state Legislature to weaken the state's growth management rules, handing more authority to local governments. They also decided to not fund the Florida Forever land-protection program.

"The political climate today and the decisions that came out of the past legislative session tell us that the wildlife commission needs to be very clear and careful with its message to the public," said Laurie Macdonald, Florida program director for Defenders of Wildlife. "Habitat protection in the state has become more difficult.''

The species receiving the most attention is the black bear, whose core South Florida habitat begins about an hour's drive west of Fort Lauderdale. The state cited the species' growing numbers and the stability of most of its habitat as grounds for removing it from the list A draft management plan worried environmentalists and animal rights advocates by suggesting that bear hunting, banned in Florida since 1994, could be one option for managing the species.

"Florida's blackbears have only recently begun to recover from near extinction, and they still face serious threats from habitat loss and fragmentation," states an email alert sent out by the Humane Society of the United States. Removing them from the list "paves the way to re-open 'trophy' bear hunts, where hunters kill the creatures for hides or heads to display."Patricia Zick, spokeswoman for the commission, said hunting is not being considered. While it is one of many ideas mentioned in a draft, the agency this week will decide only whether to give initial approval to removing the bear and other species from the list. Then comes the drafting of final management plans, which must be completed before the agency takes final action. "There's a lot of hysteria out there," she said. "People are reading it to mean that the minute we delist the bear we're going to have bear hunting in Florida, and that's not the case.''Commission chairman Barreto, a hunter, said he'd consider bear hunting, particularly if it would help reduce the number of dangerous bear-human interactions. But he said any decision is a long way off. "That's going to be well debated by all sides going into the future," he said.Hunters say a carefully controlled hunt, with a limited number of permits, would reduce incidents of bears ambling down suburban streets and invading backyards.
 "Take the alligator--since we've been hunting them, they stay away from people," said Phil Walters, a Tampa alligator hunting guide. "Now you really have to use some skill as a hunter. The same thing will happen with bears. These 500 or 600 pound bears will be hunted down pretty fast, but they're going to start to get wily.  "Just a little bit of hunting pressure and harassment will keep these bears away from people," Walters said.

The proposals to delist several birds are less controversial. The brown pelican has been recovering since the ban of the pesticide DDT. The snowy egret, limpkin and white ibis have been growing in number since the end of the plume trade at the beginning of the 20^th century.

Other birds, facing worse prospects, would remain on the list. The tricolored heron, seen around the banks of South Florida canals, is expected to continue its decline. The roseate spoonbill, among the most picturesque of South Florida's birds, is slowly increasing in number but faces an uncertain future because the population is concentrated in only three areas, rendering it vulnerable to a disaster.

Aside from the bear controversy, environmentalists support some of the other changes. Each species, whether removed from the list or not, will have a management plan written for it. That's a new move for the state and a decision that played a significant role in reducing criticism from wildlife advocates."For the birds, I think they pretty much got it right," said Julie Wraithmell, director of wildlife conservation for Audubon of Florida. "For some of the species, the thing that makes us nervous is that there's not a lot of data for them. The safety net for these species is that every species gets a management plan."