Buy Up The Bear Hunting Tags

 On May 21, the FWC Commissioners voted 4-1 to change the hunting rules to have a bear hunt every year using dogs to chase/kill bears, allowing baiting of bears, having no check stations, allowing archery and delegating the annual quota to the Executive Director so that the public has no further input.
Because this year there will be 187 bear hunting permits issued on a lottery basis available to entrants who must have a Florida hunting license and pay $5 per entry fee (unlimited entries allowed) some of us are getting licensed to enter the lottery and buy up as many of the 187 permits as possible.
For instance, if every Floridian entered the lottery, only 1.87 bears -rounded to 2 - would be killed because only 1% of Florida citizens actually hunt.  

Here is a quick rundown of how to become a part of this effort:
 

 Go to the website GoOutdoorsFlorida.com

Register as a user

 “Click Here to Get a License” 

Find the $17/$13.50/free “fresh/hunt” hunting license depending on your age 

Put it in your cart 

Check out with credit card 

Wait for FWC to finalize the new rules 8/13 

Shortly thereafter you will be able to enter the lottery for a bear tag At $5 per entry, enter as many times as you can 

If you win, buy the tag for $100 

Happy hunting (or not) 

Hunt runs 12/6 to 12/28 

Unused tags must be returned to the FWC 14 days after the hunt ends 

187 tags issued, no minimum number of tags used