I oppose black bear hunting in Florida – By Adam Sugalski

I OPPOSE BLACK BEAR HUNTING IN FLORIDA.

The 2015 Florida Black hunt changed many of our lives, forever.
This is my story below that I am emailing to the FWC commissioners.

What is your story and how did this hunt affect your life?
The commissioners need to hear it.
https://myfwc.com/con…/fwc-staff/senior-staff/commissioners/

In 2015, I embarked on a journey that would forever change me; I learned that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) was considering a bear hunt for the first time in 21 years, and on June 24, 2015, in a devasting blow, the FWC voted to have a black bear hunt.

It was time for me to switch gears from protesting circuses, and greyhound racing, to now take on a government agency, the NRA, the SCI, and trophy hunters. With time being of the essence, I quickly got to work and created a campaign called Stop The Florida Bear Hunt (STFBH). Stop The Florida Bear Hunt would later be at the forefront of the anti-bear trophy hunting movement.

We staged a 14 city protest as a last-ditch effort to stop the hunt. The protest was on October 23, 2015, the day before the hunt took place. Our efforts did little to sway the hearts and minds of the FWC Commissioners who voted to have the hunt, and the following day the bear hunt began.

I headed to Lake City as a “Bear Monitor” at check station 17.
My objective was to document and report the number of bears brought into the check station. There were 33 check stations statewide — each station had bear monitors. The purpose of the bear monitors was to ensure that the FWC called off the hunt as soon as they reached their bear kill quota.

In my lifetime, I have witnessed horrible animal atrocities from investigating circus abuse to raiding illegal slaughterhouses. When I graduated with my degree in photography and design, I would have never thought I’d be using it to document horrific animal abuse.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I call the worst day of my life. Lifeless black bear corpses were brought in.
I will never forget the apathy the trophy hunters displayed for the lives they had just taken. Hunters laughed and celebrated their kills as if they had just won the lottery. They handled the bodies as if they were trash.

I was shattered to my core, numb, yet resolute and faithful to my convictions I carried on. The bear hunt was called off early due to the alarming number of bears killed on the first day of the hunt. In the aftermath, a total number of 304 bears were killed, but that doesn’t account for the bears that weren’t brought into one of the 33 check stations statewide.

Every single bear brought in to check station 17 left with a piece of my heart. Of all the bears I saw that day, nothing touched me as profoundly as the slain nursing mother bear whose swollen breasts were a reminder of the now orphaned cubs she left behind.

Public outrage grew as photographs and stories surfaced in the wake of the hunt. We weren’t going to let the FWC get away with another unscientific, undemocratic hunt. We put the pressure on them. They would soon learn that their actions had consequences that would forever change the dynamics of the FWC.

This time we were prepared for a battle, our previous 14 city protest had now grown to 28 cities. We scheduled it for the weekend before a final vote was made on whether or not to proceed with a 2016 Florida black bear hunt. Our protest garnered mass media attention, with hundreds of protestors showing up to each protest location. After the protests, we prepared for a trip to Apalachicola, Florida.

On June 22, 2016, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted 4-3 against a 2016 black bear hunt. They also voted to have staff gather more information so that they could again vote the following year on whether to hold a 2017 hunt.

This was a bittersweet victory as we knew the fight was not over and would be on the table again in 2017.

Our campaign, Stop The Florida Bear Hunt, continued to evolve and gain momentum putting even more pressure on the FWC.

On April 19, 2017, FWC Commissioners agreed to revamp the bear management plan and report back in two years, which came after a motion to hold a 2017 bear hunt was voted down 4-3.

The FWC also stated that there would be no hunt in 2019, that they would only revisit where they were at in the process of revising the bear management plan.

Following our victory for the bears in Florida, we changed our name from Stop The Florida Bear Hunt to Bear Defenders. Bear Defenders was created with a mission to end bear hunting across the U.S. and provide other states with the tools needed to take action against bear hunting in their State.

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Adam Sugalski owns One Protest (www.OneProtest.org) and is an ardent animal activist  in Florida

Why FWC wants a bear hunt

To people who do not know the truth about bear hunting and what it is really about, you need to know.

The fact is that bear hunting is about the decline of hunting and FWC (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) scrambling to try to find more money for their coffers.

They are even trying to get women and children to hunt as the older hunters who kept the TRADITION of hunting, age out. Bored hunters are thirsty for a trophy bear and are whining about wanting to hunt them.

Hunters are lying about bears and trying to make people who don’t know about bears,  be so afraid of them that they will think that we need a hunt. We do not. Bears seen in neighborhoods are usually there because people have food attractants such as garbage, birdfeeders, dirty barbecue grills, pet food and the like that attracts them frm their natural habitat out into the neighborhood.

Bears rarely attack humans. Dogs are far more dangerous so are mosquitos.  Our bears give bluff charges to scare away a threat when it is protecting its cubs.

Get the FACTS before you sentence hundreds of innocent bears to a bloody massacre with lactating mothers and their cubs killed. Cubs not killed are left motherless and there is NO rescue for them.

It is FWC’s job to provide hunting opportunities for hunters. FWC commissioners are all hunters. It is a biased agency. Their definition of “conservation” is to let a hunted species recover so that they can be hunted leaving a token number. They do not have the same definition for it that the public has. And “harvest” is to “kill” not to gather. Unless you mean to gather the dead bodies.

PLEASE, educate yourselves and secure your attractants. Go to www. bearsmart.com or http://www.beardefenders.org and learn. Join a Facebook group that is a bear loving group so that you get the true facts, not what hunters tell you.

And remember to beware of FWC they only have their’s and the hunter’s interests at heart.

(Photo credit: Barry Vaught  Photography)

Saw Palmettos Importance to Wildlife

Saw Palmetto (Serenoa repens), is an important plant to wildlife and insects. Growing almost exclusively in the state of Florida, in lower Georgia and southeast Alabama.
All parts of the saw palmetto are used by some kind of wildlife or insects. They are eaten and used for cover and nesting.

More than 100 bird species, 27 mammals, 25 amphibians, 61 reptiles, and countless insects use saw palmetto as food and/or cover (Maehr and Layne 1996).

In the spring, the three-foot stalks bloom with small yellowish-white fragrant flowers. This attracts many insects including pollinators and the very important honey bee.
The leaves are a host plant to the palmetto skipper and monk butterflies.

In the fall the stalks give birth to berries that are high in fat content. Bears, foxes, raccoons, birds, and others eat the berries. The berries are essential for bears who have to fatten up before the denning season. Berries are on plants from August to October, the prime time for the bears to get their needed nutrition. Female bears must gain a lot of weight to be able to give birth. If they do not, the embryos will not implant and no cubs will be born.

These scrumptious berries (to wildlife), can be found in the local landscape, people’s yards and all over the state. You’d think that this would be enough for our bears and other wildlife and maybe for some wildlife it is, but with bears, they need to consume 20,000 calories a day during the fall.  And bears only live in certain areas, so for those areas, in particular, the berries and plants are especially needed.

The berries are believed to help benign prostatic hyperplasia. Studies have found both negative and positive results when compared to a placebo. Pharmaceuticals make claims that it does help, and thus they are a multi-billion dollar industry.
This industry has created a harvesting frenzy. The pickers glean as much as they possibly can to score big bucks from the buyers who in turn make a very handsome profit from the drug companies.

 

Pickers actually risk their lives to gather these berries. The eastern diamondback rattler makes a home in the bushes. Bears frequent them. Biting insects as well. Then there are the over 90-degree temperatures that bring heatstroke and dehydration. The plant leaves are sharp and cut, thus the name “saw” palmetto. There are also risks of alligators and water moccasins if near water. But for $1.00 to $2.00 a pound and at 100 pounds an hour, the risk is worth it for most pickers who have low paying jobs otherwise.

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It used to be that the berries were harvested mostly by migrant workers that didn’t have a crop to pick at the time of year that the berries are ripe, but since it was so lucrative, lots of folks jumped in. At one time the berries were bringing three to four dollars a pound.

Because of the importance of the berries to particularly bears, bear advocates fought to have some restrictions placed on the harvesting.
Thus the Florida Dept. of Agriculture put forth the following:

Pickers must now have a permit from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Unfortunately, this permit is free and workers under a crew leader are not required to have a permit.

It is unlawful to pick on any private land without the written consent of the owner along with their contact information.

It is unlawful to pick on any public, state, city or county land unless permission is granted by the proper authority and submitted for approval on a permit application.

Buyers, transporters or processors are not required to have a permit, but they are required to have the following on their person at all times:

A bill of lading
A copy of the harvester’s entire permit, which now includes a second page that contains the permission letter(s).

Buyers, transporters, and processors are required to have a copy of the harvester’s entire permit, which now includes a second page that contains the permission letter(s).

From reviewing posts by pickers, they report many buyers do not ask from any of these things. So, they do not have them.

This presents more governance needed by law enforcement who already have their hands full just busting illegal harvesters.

Further, The stalks that they remove will not produce blooms the next spring preventing insects and bees from having them to use.
There is no limit to the amount of berries that can be picked.

Pictured above a local buyer readies his haul to take to Valensa, the pharmaceutical company that is one of the end buyers.  Local buyers set up at various locations and post their location on a Facebook page dedicated to getting this and other information out, like prices being paid. They often do not require any permits or permissions to be shown by the pickers. Some pickers and buyers use such websites to discretely contact one another for a rendezvous to exchange berries for money.  Keeping their location private is one way buyers provide a service for those who pick without permits or permissions.

So something needs to change.
The berry picking business is out of control.

Studies have not been done on the impact to wildlife yet, but it is believed that it may cause bears and others to go into neighborhoods searching for the food because of the lack of these berries.

The saw palmetto is listed as a commercially exploited plant. This doesn’t seem like it’s a big deal since it only requires getting a free permit, permission letter and then it’s a free for all.

Between 45 and 50 million pounds of berries are harvested each year in the United States, 80 percent of which is exported, according to estimates from Valensa International, a leading manufacturer based in Lake County. Most of these berries come from Florida.

For more visit on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Saw-Palmetto-Berries-For-Wildlife-109004287139364/

 

 

FWC Policies Must Change About Helping Wildlife

EDIT NOTE:  Since writing this I have received some other information regarding the incident below.  FWC contacted me after I inquired about it.  Their version is not the same as the one given below.  I found out that the fawn was kept 6-7 days before FWC took it from this person.  The officer had the option of not giving a citation as they do when it’s only been a couple of days in possession, but since this had been a week he cited the man.  A neighbor evidently made an anonymous call to FWC regarding this.

If you find injured/orphaned wildlife you are supposed to call FWC and let them handle it.  The humanity in us makes us wants to help the animal ourselves and certainly it’s even more so when it seems urgent, as this did.  FWC says they will respond within two hours.  With all of us carrying cell phones these days, we should be able to contact them quickly.  I don’t know why this person said there was no response from them.  I can only  trust this is what happened.   If you are not licensed to handle wildlife or keep them, you can be fined.  It’s sometimes a toss-up but just know the risks.

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This is shared by permission:

 

Thursday 4/25/19
Approximately 3:30

A baby fawn was walking up to a lady by a busy roadway in Orlando. The lady attempted to call FWC multiple times. The mother deer was deceased nearby, she presumed to be hit by an automobile. The lady who called was advised by FWC to get the fawn to a fawn Rehabilitator. I had been in the area, the person was frantically trying to keep the deer from entering the busy road and getting hit. I offered to take it to a rehab place nearby, the person I knew was unable and unavailable to help because his recent fire and his facilities were destroyed by a recent fire. (Jim Bronzo) He advised me to take it to a rehabilitation facility in Brevard since I lived there I agreed to help. It was noted by both of us that the baby fawn’s ears were extremely curled, which is a sign of severe distress and needed immediate attention.

 

On my way home I bought temporary supplies, (receipt in hand) at Tractor Supply to begin nursing the starved, dehydrated, approximately 3-day old fawn.

Upon returning home the baby fawn was by this time going into shock from hunger and dehydration. The torque test revealed it was severely dehydrated. With having had a class 3 license in 2004, I knew what to do, act quickly on behalf of the fawn if it was going to make it to a rehab facility.

So I began using a Pedialyte liquid, (baby Gatorade) for hydration administered by an eye dropper. I administered 2-3 ml every 30 minutes by mouth to get it fluids. The baby deer improved slowly over the next 3 days and began to eat a 1 oz of baby kid (goat) formula by bottle. Using a warm washcloth stimulation, the baby deer finally urinated and had a bowel movement by the fourth day. Feeling the baby fawn was improving slowly, I researched several wild animal rehabilitation facilities nearby, left messages with no return calls. By the fifth day, she was eating 3-5oz of formula, every 3-4 hours, readily from the bottle.

Also during this time, my other half had been admitted to Holmes regional hospital for asthma attacks associated with pneumonia. So I was quite busy holding the homestead together with my 3 children and my 84-year-old demented mother, and a distressed baby deer.

By the 6th day, the baby fawn was ready to be placed at a rehab facility, but no return calls had been received, my other half had returned from the hospital on Wednesday evening.

 

On the 7th day while I was at work, May 2, 2019, an FWC officer showed up at the residence, around lunchtime. (Officer Delano) Unaware of who reported the deer, my significant other showed him the baby deer, who was kept on a screened back porch. The baby deer was kept isolated there, with two bedding areas available for her comfort. It had a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet. She was isolated in hopes of a successful return to the wild. Officer Delano requested her to sign over the deer, which she cooperated fully. Tara also donated the bottle and kid formula to the rescue the deer would be taken. Tara had prepared a large transport box with hay for the 45-minute ride to the rehab facility. I, Paco, had a conversation about how I obtained the deer because Tara was unaware of the facts of the deer situation. Officer De Lano requested that I call him back upon returning home from work, which I complied with 2 times, De Lano sent FWC officer Hatfield at 7:30 pm to have me sign the deer release form and deliver a violation with fine of $331. 😕

The baby deer was taken to Creature safe place, in Ft. Pierce Florida, with Wynn Burns, who has stated, I did an excellent job rehabilitating the fawn, and the fawn was doing very well. She recommended I be placed on her list, to become a licensed independent rehabilitation person by obtaining a class 3 license.

I am making a $100.00 donation to Creature safe place on behalf of the deer. She stated she would write a letter of what a good job was done rehabilitating the baby fawn. Please share this story. It’s the ONLY way this crazy stuff is going to stop.

This was the officer, he was young polite and professional according to my other half, however, inexperienced being 3 months with FWC, I only spoke with him on the phone and answered all his questions. My other half signed a release for the fawn, the officer instructed me to call him when I returned home, I did so twice only to have another officer deliver a citation to me at 8 o clock at night, also after several attempts to text the officer on where the baby fawn was taken. Not one return text or call concerning the safe delivery of the baby fawn. I had to call 6 different places in Ft Pierce, the officer had told me during the phone conversation that the only rehabilitation facility is in Ft Pierce. But he didn’t even know the name. 🤦🏽‍♀️ The second FWC Officer did seem rather embarrassed having to deliver a citation.

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There needs to be a policy change regarding people helping orphaned and injured wildlife.  Obviously, this fawn was of no threat to the man who helped it.  It’s not like he was trying to help a full-grown injured bear.  People run across injured, sick, orphaned, entrapped, etc. wildlife all the time and sometimes they must act to save the life of the animal.  FWC cannot always be there at the time to do anything to help the animal and as most of us know they often choose to euthanize rather than to save an animal.

Please email FWC’s commissioners to ask them to inform people better about these rules.  The majority of people do not visit the FWC website and are not educated about handing orphaned/injured wildlife.  https://myfwc.com/contact/fwc-staff/senior-staff/commissioners/

 

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Ocean & Co – Selling Turtle Bracelets – Making a killing

Would you like to buy this for less than a dollar and free shipping?  Of course, you would.  But most unsuspecting people will pay $20.00 for it and pay for shipping too.  Why?  Because they think they are really helping to save turtles.

Only 10% of PROFITS  are donated to various charities by Ocean & Co.   They get to deduct THEIR donation to the charities from their taxes and you don’t.  Why, because you gave to a BUSINESS.  You made a purchase of a bracelet.  YOU did not donate, THEY did.

Now let’s look at what you could have done.  You could have gone on Ebay or Aliexpress and bought the bracelet for less than a dollar. The rest of your $20.00 could have been sent to a legitimate charity and you could deduct YOUR donation from your taxes.  You would have given $19.00 to the charity instead of less than $2.00.  What a difference that would make to the charity if everyone did that instead of what people are doing.

What is the true “Cause” here?

The true cause of businesses like Ocean & Co and 4Ocean etc. is to make themselves rich.   You may be thinking, well, what’s wrong with that?  The problem is this is a very deceptive way to do business.  To me it’s criminal.  It’s preying on the sensitivities of people who genuinely care about the “said cause” which in this case is saving turtles lives.  These “cause” businesses mask that you are really doing very little to help the turtles, nor are they.

If you look at the mission statement for Ocean & Co, you will see where they put down 4Ocean for what they do to try to make themselves look more legit.  As I’ve said before, I hate deception.  In any form.  To me, this is as are all cause businesses that are not upfront about what they are doing and transparent about their giving to charities and their profiting for themselves.

Below is an anklet sold by Ocean & Co.  As you can see, the price is $17.99.

Below you see the same bracelet.  From .66 cents to $1.65.  This is true.  Companies like Ocean & Co buy it for probably less if they are buying in bulk.  Or maybe they are paying the listed price and having it drop shipped.  No shipping cost to them.  Easy peasy. And they tell you “Thank you for your SUPPORT.”  I say they should be saying, “Thank you for your BUSINESS!”  Stop the deception!

Give to an honest charity

 

You can Google “Turtle Rescues” and find many.  One that is in Marathon, Florida is owned by Richie Moretti.  A local businessman that used to sell Volkswagons in Winter Park, Fl who sold his business and bought a small motel in Marathon, Fl in the Keys.  He later turned it into a turtle hospital and rescue.  He has been on Sea Rescue many times and you have probably seen him on Saturday mornings on your tv.  You can give to his turtle rescue and I’m sure it would be oh so appreciated.

http://www.turtlehospital.org/

 

Please also see the blog post about 4Oceans here.    Thank you for taking the time to read this.  And please feel free to share.

Please make your donations really help!  Don’t buy cheap Chinese jewelry to give a business a big profit that benefits saving turtles very little.  Thanks.

4Oceans – A look at what a “Cause” business looks like.

I hate deception. And when I see it, I usually have to talk about it.
Hence this about 4Ocean.

Get rich quick scheme. That’s what 4Ocean has discovered and they are making
millions. And please note, they are NOT a charity. They are a for-profit business.

You would think people would do a little checking into something before they go
all out promoting a company. But that’s what passion does. It gets you so excited
that you lose your common sense red flags. And it’s that passion that 4Ocean
has capitalized on.

This company started out ordering from a company like Aliexpress or Alibaba
out of China with vendors that make bracelets for pennies and sells them for under a dollar. 4Ocean figured out that they can imply that they are saving the ocean, the turtles, the whales, you name it and charge  $20 bucks for these bracelets, plus shipping and make a handsome profit.

Well, before long they started getting questioned by people. How do you save
the ocean, the turtles, sharks etc? By now, they had made enough money to buy some equipment or have signage put on a boat to make them look more legit. Then
as time went on they figured out they could go out in their Florida area ocean
and pick up a little bit of garbage and they would be even more valid.

• An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash-most of it plastic -is dumped in the world’s oceans every year.   Think about that and how much of an impact one pound of trash is being pulled (picture a can of soup), from the ocean times only millions is doing.  I’m thinking at a rate of 14 BILLION pounds per YEAR – this is nothing!   It’s like trying to empty the bathtub with a thimble as the faucet is running. Ludicrous!

Anyway, back to 4Ocean, from there they blossomed, (meanwhile raking in more and more money) getting a captain for a boat, flags, and other paraphernalia with their name on it and soliciting volunteers who would gladly help them. After all, they were helping to clean the ocean. From what I understand they take their hauls of trash and sell them for even more profit.

Their bracelets, under scrutiny, went from being just what they found on a Chinese website with turtles, dolphins, or whatever they could use to create a cause for,(Remember, they have to appeal to people’s passions) to getting a charm logo on them and being made of recycled plastic. Not the plastic from the ocean, however, the plastic in India. Be it whatever. (They now buy from India)

Currently, they offer different colors of the same bracelet without the cute little turtles, etc., and they offer you a set of bracelets you can buy all
at one time to support many causes in one fail swoop. “One pound of garbage
for every bracelet bought.” You have to wonder who is keeping track of that.
And by the way, nothing else seems to be being done except the trash and
a donation to each cause, which is unknown. I really wish their “sponsors,”
which are the causes they send a token to, would not connect their
name to them. Maybe there is some kind of agreement, like “we will donate
to you if you will sponsor us.”  I’m sure there has to be something like that.

You can see here (https://4ocean.com/collections/all-products) some of the
many causes they have tried to appeal to. Same bracelet, different colors,
all with their logo and $20 a pop. I bet they are paying fifty cents for these
now. Doesn’t it make more sense to take your $20 and send it to the
charitable organization you want to help so they get the entire $20 and not
some minute fraction of it? They, after all, are the ones that are really making
a difference. Remember, 4Ocean is NOT a charity.

It doesn’t take much Googling to find comments about this company and their
shady business practices. One such is Reddit, where some smart people have realized
what a sham this is. https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/comments/8sqmdh/isitbullshit_are_4ocean_bracelets_really/

As I was writing this and looking at 4Ocean’s “shop,” I saw that they are selling water bottles with their logo on them too. So I went searching for the water bottles to find out how much they cost, when I stumbled upon another company doing the same thing 4Oceans is doing only they will plant trees and they are not the only other cause business, there must be tons! I’m remembering the sock business that donates socks and there is a cuddly animal or doll business that donates meals to starving children. I’m telling you this is a lucrative business! It’s called a “Cause” business. And inherently there is nothing wrong with attaching a cause to your business. People like that. The problem is when you decieve people by what you are doing. And that’s how 4Oceans started out and continues to do in some fashion.

You know, as long as you give some small portion to the cause that you claim you are helping, you can do this too. You don’t have to be a charity yourself. Genius, Suckers!

It’s all about the money.

Legitimate Charities to Give To:

https://www.underseas.com/blog/best-marine-conservation-organizations-donate-earth-day/

https://oceanconservancy.org/trash-free-seas/plastics-in-the-ocean/