Recently an activist stated that FWC does not kill bears. How bazaar coming from a bear activist who has been involved in stopping the bear hunts. Anyone can request these records from FWC.
To prove my point about FWC killing bears, I am including some images of records sent to me from FWC of the bears that they have killed during 1/11/15 to 4/11/16. These records do not come color-coded. I did that so I could reference certain things more easily.
This letter was shared and was given permission to reprint.
An Open Letter to FWC Executive Director Wiley, Chairman Yablonski, and Commissioners
On October 24th, 2016, a mature, male black bear was illegally shot and killed in my subdivision in Tavares, Lake County. To you, this event may mean nothing more than an additional task for your Law Enforcement Division. To me, and to many of my neighbors, this event was a vicious, senseless crime, and a heartbreaking metaphor for the larger plight of Florida’s wildlife. I would like you to understand what the death of this bear means to us, and to recognize the broader implications of what has just happened here.
I have an intensely personal stake in this case. I grew up in the city of Detroit, Michigan – not exactly the best place for wildlife viewing. In 2006, I was fortunate enough to be able to build my current home, which overlooks one of the last undeveloped parcels of land within the city limits of Tavares. For the last ten years, my family and I have experienced the company of owls, ospreys, a bobcat, coyotes, and even a diamondback rattlesnake. But, since 2009, the animal we most enjoyed was “Spanky,” the bear, whose pathway between “wilderness” and “civilization” took him past our back door.
You probably think it is inappropriate, even silly, for ordinary people like us to give wild animals names. Perhaps we should have given him an impersonal, scientific designation, like B2009. But, to us, the bear was not just an entry in a database or a red dot on a map: he was an individual, a neighbor, virtually a member of our extended family. The person who intentionally took him from us has stolen one of the most cherished parts of our lives – a living being who connected us to wild Florida in a way that nothing else can, adding a magical quality to a daily routine otherwise dominated by long hours of work. When we found ourselves asking why we were working so hard – what we were working for – this solitary bear helped provide a better answer than anything our realtor told us in 2006.
As you may have seen from the television interviews with some of my neighbors, our bear had never presented a threat to our safety. We had many “up close and personal” encounters with Spanky over the years, and not once did he act aggressively. His worst offense was to break into our screened porch – lured in by the irresistible aromas of a recent fish-frying session – but even then we simply shooed him out and realized that we were more responsible for the problem than he was. We learned how to be “bear wise,” and thus for seven years we and Spanky were able to coexist quite happily. For the small price of simple changes in behavior, we reaped the great benefit of having a beautiful animal in our lives.
Your staff often refer to wild animals like Florida black bears as “renewable natural resources.” Spanky was not a “resource.” He was a unique character, living the best life he could in the diminished habitat we humans had left for him, and doing it with a gentle dignity that deserved, and received, our respect. Nor was he “renewable.” He is gone. He will not be – can not be – replaced. We do not mean this in a purely sentimental sense, for the little pocket of habitat that served as his home is far too isolated to ever again receive a bear, unless by some miracle. And the sad truth is that there is scant time for even a miracle to occur, as much of the undeveloped land in question will surely be converted into habitat for humans within the next few years. When we protest, we are told that we can not stand in the way of “progress,” and left to wonder what amount of impact fees can ever compensate a community for the loss of its wild heart.
One might have hoped, at least, that Florida’s “Wildlife Conservation” Commission would share our concerns about the crushing of many wild hearts across the state, yet your response to the killing of our bear was chilling. Mr. Workman – echoing a long line of similar statements in bear-related press releases – told the Leesburg Daily Commercial that your agency “diligently works to limit the challenges presented by our state’s large black bear population, which has been scientifically estimated to be over 4,000 bears.” In these circumstances, it is hard to imagine a more intellectually perverse and morally reprehensible comment.
Your representation of Florida’s black bear situation is exactly backwards. The bear population that you continually refer to as “large and growing,” or “robust and resilient,” is in fact only 0.02% of the human population, a massive disparity perfectly captured by the isolation of our bear, alone amid thousands of people. And his fate – deliberately killed by a human of defective character – poses the question that should be of central concern to any conservation agency worthy of the name; to wit, how to limit the challenges presented to our small black bear population by a vastly larger and infinitely more destructive human population?
It seems to me that there are two very obvious reasons for your blatant and repeated reversal of the proper perspective. First, Florida is “open for business” and your constitutional independence will no more impede the commercial juggernaut rampaging across our state than our city’s zoning board. Beyond this, though, lies a transparent attempt to convince the public, through a steady “drip, drip, drip” of agency messaging, that the state’s bear population is “too large” and must therefore be “managed” by hunting. This being the case, why should any citizen of Florida reporting a wildlife crime expect a satisfactory resolution, when the very agency in charge of the investigation seeks to provide hunters with an “opportunity” to kill the same animals, just under more “regulated” conditions?
In order to demonstrate your competence to protect our wildlife from those who have no more respect for your regulations than they do for God’s creatures, you must first acknowledge the consequences of your own actions. Our bear was killed on the one-year anniversary of last year’s bear hunt. This is surely no coincidence. The killer was clearly disgruntled about being denied a legal “opportunity” to kill this (or perhaps some other) bear, so he decided to flout your authority and have some illegal fun instead. (The “resource,” of course, was completely wasted, because no part of “it” was “harvested.” Maybe that, if nothing else, will command your attention.) Had you not decided to permit a bear hunt in 2015, this uniquely despicable motivation would never have arisen, and our bear would most likely still be with us, enriching our lives as he had for years before. Allowing hunting sent a message that bears were “fair game,” a message that continues to ring in certain ears long after the “season” ended. When you now attempt to outlaw the “taking” of bears you are, in effect, speaking out of both sides of your mouth, and one can only wonder how many other bears have died without media attention as a result of the signal you sent.
I do not, therefore, expect you to care about any sense of “justice” for our bear, even though almost all well-adjusted people believe that he deserves it. But I do imagine that you might wish to protect the credibility of your agency by proving that you are, in fact, capable of conducting a vigorous investigation of a repugnant wildlife crime. For if you can not apprehend and prosecute those who willfully violate your regulations, then your claim that hunting is “regulated” will crumble along with my shattered dream. And if you do not stand up for the remaining animals who are about to be swept away by the rising human tide – if you allow them to be shot in the back, just like Spanky – then the character of your agency will itself be “fair game” for all Floridians who shared a dream similar to mine.
Spanky was a “good ambassador” for his species, winning many friends in our community. The same can not be said for the human who took his life. As stakeholders in the conservation of Florida’s black bear, we must now rely on your agency to hold the killer accountable for his actions, and to keep us notified of your progress at all phases of the investigation. Having contributed to the climate that fomented this crime, you owe us no less. The debt you owe to Spanky, however, can never be repaid.
Sincerely,
Jacqueline Elfers Nicholson,
Tavares, FL
This, sadly, is Pedals. This is what happened to the beloved bear. Tell me how this makes sense that his life should have been taken?
Although we cannot tell for sure who killed Pedals, the bi-pedal bear.
There are surely people who know and should be telling. For one,
a person who may not have killed him is catching all the flack, as is
his family and business. Not that this person didn’t set himself up for
this, he did. He bragged about going to kill Pedals for three years and
as the time came closer it got worse. He taunted people who loved
Pedals showing himself to be one sick puppy. Who would set out
to kill a harmless, lame bear who had done no wrong and wouldn’t?
All black bears have been unjustly vilified. But Pedals was lame.
There are those hunters among some ethical ones that give them all
a black eye. It’s the heartless, soulless, trophy, thrill seeking sick
individuals that eat, drink and breathe the blood of an innocent animal.
There are many “game” species that hunters are allowed to hunt and
most go without any complaint. Then there are the magnificent creatures
that nobody should be hunting. And those that are rare, or injured.
Most people take pity on an injured animal and seek to help it. It is a
rare breed that sets out to kill it saying they are putting it out of its misery.
Pedals was surviving quite well. Without the need to be in a sanctuary to
keep it from being murdered, it would have continued to do well.
The world is made of all kinds of people. Some make it better, some make
it worse. I think I can safely say, that the person who killed Pedals is not
making it a better place.
There was no stopping the bloody massacre on New Jersey’s bears. Governor Chris Christie was gung-ho as was the New Jersey Department of Fish & Wildlife. But the hunters were the most eager. At only $2.00 to purchase a permit to kill a bear, thousands flocked to the woods in their camo, their boots, their rifles, and bows.
One hunter, Thomas McCreary, owner of Murphy’s Shamrock Inn Pub, bragged that he was going to kill Pedals. He taunted others on a Facebook page called, “Pedals the Bi-Pedal Bear, that he “had something for him.” How sick. How sick this poor excuse for a human being is that he felt he needed to kill a harmless and defenseless animal that was only trying to live. He was beating the odds, having been either injured or born with his front two legs deformed and unable to use them to walk on. McCreary denies killing Pedals as does New Jersey Dept. Of Fish and Wildlife. But one has to wonder with all the bragging, taunting and threatening that McCreary did, why would he not be the one who killed Pedals. Most everyone else had a heart and loved him.
He became a favorite of everyone because he looked like a person in a bear costume as he walked around on two legs. There was money raised to place Pedals in a sanctuary where he could live out his days and not be killed during a hunt or otherwise hurt. But Governor Christie and the NJDFW would not have it. There were petitions signed bythousands and thousands of people to request that he be protected, yet to no avail.
Pedals was the equivalent to Cecil the lion who was unjustly killed by dentist Walter Palmer in a trophy hunt. Cecil, like Pedals, was much loved. And the aftermath from the killing of Cecil left Walter Palmer and others associated in the killing of him in misery.
I can only hope that likewise, the killing of Pedals will do the same for whomever did kill Pedals will suffer the same feat.
(This article is written by Alex Foxx. )
As Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) gets ready to announce another bear hunt, many questions have been raised with not many satisfactory answers generated. Last year, a minimum of 655 F…
Source: Nowhere to Turn: The Plight of the Florida Black Bear
This is just a few of the areas and reasons FWC killed some of our bears in 2015.
Nick Wiley did not disclose that he is the executive director of FWC in the recently published article he wrote to the Orlando Sentinel. As executive director he is clearly
biased and so that articlle should be read as tongue in cheek, or fingers crossed behind the back.
Regarding the number of bear calls in 2002 – The bears were still on the endangered list.
In 2015 – The bears were not and FWC was asking people to call if they even saw a bear!
I’d say they were working their spin to get people to agree to a hunt. Not that people’s opinion matter but it’s better to instill fear, such as Marion Hammer with the NRA just did by saying bears are terrorizing our neighborhoods! What a lie! And that’s all we get from such hunting biased organizations and people.
The count of 4,350 did not deduct the over 600 bears killed last year!!! How’s that for spinning the truth?
I’m sick of all the lies just to try to justify a hunt that should not take place to please the mere 1% of the hunting populace in the state.
The bears are wandering out of their areas because people are feeding them and the forest are being dozed down. The oaks trees are being replaced with long-leaf slash pine which offers no food. The saw palmetto berries are being raped by illegals who sell them to the pharmaceutical industry. Wiley failed to emphasize the enormous problem there is with that! Omission of truth is lying!
Wiley mentioned the number of road kills. This in itself is controlling the numbers of bears along with the 129 that FWC killed last year and natural deaths. No need for a hunt.
We have “thousands of human-bear conflicts a year?” Seriously? A person seeing a bear in their yard is NOT a conflict! Keep it real. When you say these thing you know people are going to think there was interaction and that people were in danger! Shame on you!
Bears have increased all over the United States. Not just Florida. It’s not so much to do with FWC as it is with nature. And left to their own, nature will take care of the populations and control them.
For those reading this who do not know, “conservation” according to FWC includes hunting – killing. They do not “conserve.” They are mandated to provide hunting opportunities for hunters. That is their job!
The reason for Nick Wiley writing this article is to make the public trust the FWC in making the decision for having another bear hunt. Pure and simple.
Unfortunately, The Orlando Sentinel did not allow people who are not subscribers to even comment on this article. Guess they need the money.
If you want the truth about the bear hunts and the FWC, join a Facebook group devoted to them.
People owe it to our wildlife to be educated and fight for their lives.
