TAMPA, Fla. — Opponents of Florida's upcoming bear hunt are mounting multiple legal and grassroots efforts to stop the December event, including a lawsuit filed against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and a campaign where people are applying for hunting permits with no intention of using them.
Raquel Levy and her team at Atlantic Law Center, representing Bear Warriors United, filed an injunction Tuesday against the FWC to halt the hunt.
WATCH: Florida bear hunt faces legal challenges as opponents fight December start date
"This is something that is not done every day, you know, for lawyers to go decide to sue FWC, but we're doing well in this David and Goliath fight, because the science is on our side," Levy said. "They're not working in the best interest of the population, nor of animals, nor of the environment that they were entrusted to protect. They're actually destroying it."
After a unanimous vote in August, the first hunt in a decade is set to happen this year. The FWC said they are approving this regulated hunting because bears have become a success story in conservation – going from several hundred in the 1970s to over 4,000 today.
Travis Thompson, the executive director of All Florida, supports the hunt and believes the lawsuit won't hold up.
"I don't believe this suit will find merit, and I think if it ever gets heard, there's no way FWC loses," Thompson said.
Thompson said the hunt supports conservation efforts.
"If all 172 tags were filled with sows, we know that the population will stay the same or continue to increase using the greatest science that we have on the planet, which is what we want to drive wildlife policy. Science, not politics, not lawsuits, not this kind of stuff," Thompson said.
However, several groups are pushing back, claiming the FWC data is incorrect.
"The science is truly on our side," Levy said. "The FWC has not done any bear studies since 10 years ago, and Florida has exploded in terms of population growth, development, everything's getting bulldozed. It has been an explosion in population and in development. So, using numbers from 10 years ago is definitely not relevant today."
Levy said they are turning to the courts as a last resort to stop the harvest and save the bears.
"My thoughts are that conservation does not begin and end with a bullet," Levy said. "As Florida develops even further, the amount of bears are going to decrease."
Thompson said he believes everything FWC does is science-based.
"I believe there's more than one piece of data that goes into this, which is no different than how we do Red fish regulations in the state," Thompson said.
The lawsuit isn't the only form of pushback. Some people applied for permits with no intention of killing bears. The FWC received more than 160,000 applications.
Kevin Youngberg is a St. Pete resident who said he submitted 500 applications but was not chosen in the lottery.
He opposes the bear hunt and questions the data behind the decision.
The organizer of the silent protest said roughly 40 people have claimed their permits and plan to save that many bears.
"There is no firm evidence of how many bears are in Florida, and I think it's a dangerous precedent when you have a historical record of what happened like in 2015," Youngberg said.
The lawsuit references the 2015 hunt, saying "hunters killed 304 Florida black bears in 48 hours."
"I oppose the hunt, killing is not conservation," Youngberg said.
Levy said they already have a hearing date set for November 17.
When Tampa Bay 28 reached out to FWC for a statement, they said they could not comment on active litigation.
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