Florida kicks off first black bear hunt in a decade, despite outcry

For the first time in a decade, hunters armed with rifles and crossbows are fanning out across Florida’s swamps and flatwoods to legally hunt the Florida black bear, over the vocal opposition of critics.
The state-sanctioned hunt began on Saturday, after drawing more than 160,000 applications for a far more limited number of hunting permits, including from opponents who are trying to reduce the number of bears killed in this year’s hunt, the state’s first since 2015.
The Florida Fish and…