STATEWIDE -- It's open season for bear hunting applications.
Anyone interested in taking part in the bear hunt in December can apply for a permit beginning Friday.
"Bear harvest permit applications for the 2025 regulated bear hunting season will open at 10 a.m. EDT on Sept. 12 and can be submitted through Sept. 22 at 11:59 p.m.," stated the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).
FWC approved the state's first black bear hunt in more than 10 years.
The proposal allows for the removal of 187 bears in four designated bear hunting zones, in the Eastern Panhandle, North, Central and Southern parts of the state.
As for our area, the Central Zone encompasses parts of Marion, Lake, Orange, Seminole, Volusia and Flagler counties.
FWC said a bear harvest permit is a limited-entry type permit that's required to take part in the bear hunt.
The program is supposed to "prevent overcrowding" and help manage the black bear population.
Interested parties must apply on the FWC's online licensing system and pay a $5 nonrefundable fee.
Permits will be issued to hunters through a random drawing, whereby Florida residents would be required to pay $100 if selected.
Non-residents must pay a more expensive fee of $300.
Chosen applicants will receive a permit for a Specific Bear Harvest Zone and a physical tag.
Among the rules for this year's hunt is that hunters are limited to one bear per permit.
According to the FWC, more than 4,000 black bears live across the state.
On its website, the commission says that while there is enough suitable bear habitat to support the black bear's population, its concern stems from the fact that the four largest subpopulations continue to grow, affecting bear habitats in the future.
The FWC adds it doesn't want to wait to implement what it calls "management actions" until then, so it's taking an "early action" approach, which allows the organization to monitor conditions and manage the black bear population before it could reach that level.
That's something attorney Raquel Levy disagrees with.
She represents the Bear Warriors United organization, which filed a lawsuit against FWC in August to stop the bear hunt.
"They were supposed to take into account that their populations are going down because there's so much massive development going on. They're being killed by cars because of development, the bears being displaced because of it, and those are all considerations that they were supposed to legally take into account, and they didn't," Levy said.
Since talks of a bear hunt were first reintroduced to the table last year, many people have expressed their stance both for and against the hunt.
For instance, members of the Animal Rights Foundation group said there is no justification for a hunt, adding that bear-human interaction is a result of overdevelopment.
On the other hand, local hunters like the owner of Gobbler's Lodge 3D Archery Range & Pro Shop, Daniel Levesque, said that they believe the state's current numbers justify the hunt.
"There's an enormous population for bears," Levesque said. "They have been very selective as to how many bears that we can take, and it's a lottery system that the FWC has put in place."
The hunt is scheduled to take place in early December.