ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida's first bear hunt in a decade drew more than 160,000 applicants for a far more limited number of permits, including from opponents who are trying to reduce the number of bears killed.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will award 172 bear hunt permits by random lottery for the December hunt, down slightly from the 187 permits initially proposed. The permit allows a hunter to kill one bear in areas where the bear population is deemed large enough.
Florida has an estimated 4,000 black bears, wildlife officials say.
Applications were taken from Sept. 12 through Monday. FWC spokeswoman Shannon Knowles said in an email Tuesday that the agency received 163,459 applications, adding that it does not have records of how many applications it got for the 2015 hunt, which resulted in more than 300 bears killed in two days.
“We will collect and evaluate data that will be used to shape future hunts, such as the number of unused permits and hunter success,” Knowles said.
Several organizations opposed to the hunt, including the Sierra Club and Bear Defenders, encouraged people to obtain hunting licenses and apply for a bear permit they would never use.
“By our involvement in this lottery, bear lives will be saved. We won’t say how many until all the unused tags are turned in two weeks after the hunt ends," said Chuck O'Neal, president and founder of Speak Up Wekiva and Speak Up for Wildlife. “There are now thousands of animal advocates within FWCs database of licensed hunters who receive surveys on new hunting rules. That impact will be felt for decades.”
Opponents also sued to try to halt the hunt. A great deal of the debate has focused on whether the hunt is necessary.
There has been only one documented fatal black bear attack in Florida, the May mauling of 89-year-old Robert Markel and his daughter’s dog in a rural area. Officials in many parts of the state say potentially dangerous human-bear contacts are increasing, which environmentalists say is largely because people are encroaching on bear habitat.
The FWC says on its website that hunting is a proven way to control wildlife populations.
This year's hunting plan has more stringent rules than the 2015 hunt, in which permits were provided to anyone who could pay for them. That led to a chaotic event that was shut down days early. At least 38 female bears with cubs were killed, meaning the young bears probably died too.
This year's hunt will be held from Dec. 6 to Dec. 28. A permit costs $100 for Florida residents and $300 for nonresidents. No cubs or females with cubs are to be killed, according to FWC staff.
Private landowners with 5,000 acres (2,023 hectares) or more could hold what the FWC calls a “bear harvest program” on their property under the proposal. Bears could be hunted at bait feeding stations on private property. Also, bowhunting will be allowed under rules similar to those for deer.
In the future, the FWC foresees a bear hunt between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, subject to more studies about the effect of hunting and the population of the animals. In future years, hunters could use up to six dogs each to pursue bears.
Florida also allows hunting of alligators from mid-August to November, along with yearound removal of invasive pythons from private land and designated public land managed by the FWC. The state also has an annual python challenge offering prizes and recognition for capturing pythons in the Florida Everglades.
FILE - Citizens attending a Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission hearing about proposed bear hunting wear t-shirts against legalized bear hunting in the state, May 21, 2025, in Ocala, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was at the White House on Thursday discussing her country's future with President Donald Trump even after he publicly dismissed her credibility to take over after an audacious U.S. military raid captured then-President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in Venezuela. His administration has signaled its willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president and, along with others in the deposed leader’s inner circle, remains in charge of day-to-day governmental operations.
In endorsing Rodríguez so far, Trump has sidelined Machado, who has long been a face of resistance in Venezuela and sought to cultivate relationships with Trump and key administration voices like Secretary of State Marco Rubio among the American right wing in a gamble to ally herself with the U.S. government.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was expecting a positive discussion during the lunchtime meeting and called Machado “a remarkable and brave voice” for the people of Venezuela.
The White House said Machado sought the face-to-face meeting without setting expectations for what would occur. Her party is widely believed to have won 2024 elections rejected by Maduro. Machado previously offered to share with Trump the Nobel Peace Prize she won last year, an honor he has coveted.
Leavitt said Trump is committed to seeing Venezuela hold elections “one day,” but wouldn’t say when that might happen.
Machado plans to have a meeting at the Senate later Thursday. Trump has called her “a nice woman” while indicating they might not touch on major issues in their talks Thursday.
Her Washington swing began after U.S. forces in the Caribbean Sea seized another sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration says had ties to Venezuela. It is part of a broader U.S. effort to take control of the South American country’s oil after U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife at a heavily guarded compound in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
The White House says Venezuela has been fully cooperating with the Trump administration since Maduro’s ouster.
Rodríguez, the acting president, herself has adopted a less strident position toward Trump and his “America First” policies toward the Western Hemisphere, saying she plans to continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro — a move thought to have been made at the behest of the Trump administration. Venezuela released several Americans this week.
Trump, a Republican, said Wednesday that he had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was ousted.
“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump said during an Oval Office bill signing. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”
Even before indicating the willingness to work with Venezuela's interim government, Trump was quick to snub Machado. Just hours after Maduro's capture, Trump said of Machado that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”
Machado has steered a careful course to avoid offending Trump, notably after winning last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump wanted to win himself. She has since thanked Trump. Her offer to share the peace prize with him was rejected by the Nobel Institute.
Machado’s whereabouts have been largely unknown since she went into hiding early last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. She briefly reappeared in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.
The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.
A year later, she drew the anger of Chávez and his allies again for traveling to Washington to meet President George W. Bush. A photo showing her shaking hands with Bush in the Oval Office lives in the collective memory. Chávez considered Bush an adversary.
Almost two decades later, she marshaled millions of Venezuelans to reject Chávez’s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a brutal crackdown by state security forces.
Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela, and Janetsky from Mexico City. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - U.S. President George Bush, right, meets with Maria Corina Machado, executive director of Sumate, a non-governmental organization that defends Venezuelan citizens' political rights, in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, May 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)
