Florida's black bear hunt brings taxidermy demand to the Gulf Coast – Gulf Coast News and Weather

Florida's black bear hunting season, which began on Dec. 6 and continues until Sunday, has led to a surge in local taxidermy demand as hunters seek to preserve their trophies.
For more than a decade, black bears in Florida had not been hunted, leaving taxidermist Bucky Flowers to receive bear skins from Canada and Alaska. However, with the state now allowing black bears to be hunted, Flowers is seeing a change.
"We get them in, we find out what the customer wants to do. And most of them are rugs. This one happens to be a life-size, obviously. But we just pretty much do what the customer has and pays for," Flowers said.
For the first time in his career, an instruction sheet for this bear hunting season was sent to Flowers' store to ensure hunters in Florida were approved for a permit and had the proper tags for the bear.
"There's only 170-something permits were allocated for the whole state. So obviously we're not going to get them all here. So, but you know, we have gotten a few already and we may get a few more, and we may not," Flowers said.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has not released information on how many bears have been killed or where, despite multiple public records requests.
Flowers, a Florida native, expressed confusion over the controversy surrounding the bear hunt, pointing out that every year the state allows hunts for deer, hogs, turkey, gators, bobcats, otters, squirrels, and rabbits.
"I don't understand what the selective outrage is about the bear hunt, because every year we hunt deer, hogs, turkey, gators, bobcats, otters, squirrels, rabbits," he said.
"But now that everybody is developing everything and now they're in neighborhoods and getting in garbage cans, and we don't really need big predators, roaming neighborhoods, you know," Flowers said.
Florida's black bear hunt continues until Sunday, Dec. 28.
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