More than 163,000 apply for 172 bear hunting permits

Lazaro Aleman reporter3.riverbendnews@gmail.com The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) reports that as of the deadline date of Tuesday, Sept. 23, it had received 163,459 applications for the 172 available permits in the state’s first sanctioned black bear hunt in a decade. Each permit allows a hunter to take one bear in areas of the state where the bear population is deemed large enough to sustain a harvest. Wildlife officials put Florida’s total black bear population at about 4,000 animals. The large number of applicants puts the odds of any one person actually getting a permit at one in 999 on average. The FWC has yet to say when the drawing wil