By Glen Gardner, Public News Service – FL
September 28, 2010
TAMPA, Fla. – Bear populations in Florida have staged a comeback in some areas and a new draft plan is sparking debate on how best to keep that comeback alive. Dave Telesco is the Bear Management Program coordinator with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He says the plan features a territorial approach to management.
“We’d have bear management units, so each area that has a bear would potentially be managed differently based on both the bear’s needs, but as well as the communities that are surrounding that bear population.”
The Florida black bear is a threatened species whose populations are expanding in some areas while still very restricted in others. The draft plan is available online for public review and comment at www.MyFWC.com/Bear, along with a series of public hearings.
Laurie Macdonald is the Florida director of Defenders of Wildlife. In 1994 she was instrumental in developing a black bear conservation program. She believes the new draft plan is a great start.
“We are really pleased that the Wildlife Commission has undertaken a comprehensive conservation plan for the bear.”
Macdonald says the bear management unit concept employed in the draft plan is a good one, but it’s a work in progress.
“It does address the need for habitat protection for making the connection between important habitat areas so that bears can move between populations.”
There has been a lot of focus on one line of the plan that mentions hunting as a possible management tool, but Macdonald thinks that would be inappropriate given the protected status of the bear and its important role in the ecosystem. She says the real focus needs to be education on trash handling and other food issues to limit bear-human contact.
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