by Erin C. Healy - Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Recently, the Outdoor Wire reported that Safari Club International (SCI) seeks to intervene in a lawsuit being brought by anti-hunters to stop the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) from authorizing the Sunshine State's first black bear hunt in a decade. An average of 300 Florida black bears are killed by vehicle strikes annually—almost double the 172 black bear tags being issued—yet organizations like Bear Warriors United still fail to recognize how hunters, biologists and state and federal wildlife managers continue to work together successfully to not only rebuild wildlife populations and their habitats, but to allow hunters to participate in longstanding American traditions and enjoy environments with restored wildlife populations. In fact, as this NRA hunting news website reported in June, Florida's anti-hunters refuse to acknowledge the utilitarian applications of legal, regulated hunting as a wildlife management tool to such an extent that they are urging fellow antis to apply for the state’s bear tags in the hope of denying them to hunters.
But if you simply drove the 160 miles from Pensacola, Fla., through Mobile, Ala., and the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the Louisiana border, you'd be in a state that has proven that even under the most challenging circumstances, hunters and conservationists can work with state and federal wildlife personnel to bring back a threatened wildlife population. For just one example of the role hunters and hunting play in restoring wildlife populations and their habitats, the SCI Foundation recently released “From the Brink: Louisiana Black Bear Recovery,” a 20-minute movie celebrating how biologists, wildlife managers, hunters and conservationists restored what used to be an iconic species of the south: the Louisiana black bear.
The SCI Center for Conservation Law and Education is a non-profit that deploys in-house legal counsel and state liaisons and utilizes its office on Capitol Hill to help litigate cases that impact hunting while backing science-based decision-making at the state and federal levels. The organization's efforts helped to tip the scales in favor of Louisiana bear hunters when anti-hunters challenged the delisting of the species. And if ever there existed a textbook case of how hunters, conservationists and government agencies can overcome monumental obstacles, bringing back the Louisiana black bear is it.
The Ursus americanus luteolus is one of 16 subspecies of American black bear. Up until the 20th century, black bears figured prominently in the bayous and backwoods of the South. As more and more acres of land were cleared for agricultural use, bear habitat became limited and fragmented. Adding to the problem was the fact that 90 percent of land in Louisiana is in the hands of private landowners. Couple this with overharvesting and the numbers of black bears in the Bayou State plummeted. By 1992, the species was officially classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The first step involved getting private landowners on board with both habitat restoration and sound data collection. The public could not have been more cooperative and enthusiastic to participate in the project, explains Maria Davidson in the film. Davison is currently the SCIF large carnivore director. Prior to that, she worked as a biologist for 25 years with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Together with Debbie Fuller of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Davidson recognized that habitat restoration would be a critical component of the plan's success. To that end, hundreds of thousands of acres were reclaimed from agricultural use and replanted, Fuller said.
The next step established a means of collecting and reporting dependable and trustworthy data for scientific research. Landowners not only assisted with the setup of and access to trail cameras but accommodated annual den checks and the collaring and monitoring of female bears. Long-term data became essential to determining the survival rates of sows and cubs. The movie's footage of these den visits is probably some of the most heartwarming. SCIF President Brian Welker and his wife, Denise Welker, founder of Women Go Hunting and a recipient of the NRA sponsored SCI Diana Award, accompanied the biologists on one of these den checks. Brian reiterated that the collaborative effort taking place in Louisiana for the restoration of the black bear was not just an example for the country, but for the whole world. Denise's passion for the efforts came across in her call for women and children to experience something like a den visit so the roles each stakeholder plays in conservation could be appreciated, including that of the hunter and the next generation of hunters.
By 2016, the collaborative efforts of hunters, conservationists, state and federal wildlife managers and biologists culminated in the Louisiana black bear meeting the criteria for removal from the threatened species list. By 2018 anti-hunting groups such as the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Humane Society of Louisiana, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Healthy Gulf and Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association West banded together under the leadership of the Sierra Club to sue the U.S. Department of the Interior and the USFWS to keep the black bear on the threatened list. As Davidson pointed out, the Endangered Species Act is weaponized by anti-hunting organizations, but Louisiana showed how to get the job done, despite such lawfare tactics. This is where the SCI Center for Conservation Law and Education’s filing on behalf of the delisting made a difference. The ruling easily could have gone in favor of one small, but vocal and well-financed segment of society: the anti-hunting extremists.
The second half of the video follows three generations of hunters in the Brown family: young Fisher, his father, Cody, and grandfather, Charles. After the Louisiana black bear's listing in 1992 and delisting in 2016, it was another eight years before the first limited hunt was conducted, and Fisher got a tag, the only youth hunter in the 2024 hunt. Although raised in a hunting family and closely mentored by his grandfather, Fisher received extra guidance from SCI brand ambassador Kristy Titus, host of the digital TV series “Pursue the Wild” and the “Wild and Uncut” podcast.
The Louisiana black bear hunt allows for bait stations with cleared lanes. As Cody explains, this ensures not only clean shots but also ensures the target animal is correctly identified as to age and sex. It was determined through camera observation at bait stations that an older male, one on the decline and with jaw injuries from fighting, would be Fisher's target. We see the range of emotions from the boy as he stands beside the animal he's taken, his hand easily fitting inside the span of the bear's paw and then again as he and his family are gathered around the table, saying grace and enjoying street tacos made with bear meat, a favorite of Fisher's.
That is indeed how we get it done, by working together for the benefit of the species, the hunter and his family, the nature-lover, the biologist and the wildlife manager. You can watch “From the Brink: Louisiana Black Bear Recovery” on You Tube here: https://youtu.be/ZYHw5kHnLGA?si=JhpArIDiwcGbglWH
Photo by Lon Lauber; lonlauber.com