Talk:Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

DEP vs FWC
I think the header paragraph that says, "charged with regulating the environment and enforcing environmental legislation in the state of Florida." might confuse them with the Fl Department of Environmental Protection. I haven't found a mission statement to help defferentiate them, but FWC does wildlife and fisheries, not all environmental laws, such as water quality, air quality, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paddling bear (talk • contribs) 16:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Boat count
Not sure why they would know, but the local newspaper quoted FWCC on the number of boats registered in the area. Why not the Coast Guard? Does the FWCC have a charter not listed? Student7 (talk) 02:59, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

FWC criticism
[I am pasting a reverted test edit from [User:97.103.48.136] in the article mainspace from October 21. 2015 here, because it contains interesting, though unsourced WP:POINTs. It could be researched for inclusion in a "public perception" section or alike:]--Wuerzele (talk) 17:41, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

The current commission board exists of hunters, ranch owners, land developers and wealthy magnates who have an agenda to obliterate the predatory land mammals in the state such as the rare sub-species of Black Bear that is only found in Florida and on the edges of Alabama and Georgia connecting to Florida, also the Florida Panther. Wealthy rancher and hunter Aleise Priddy who has special cattle that she raises on her ranch blames several deaths on the bears and panthers and seeks to get the endangered panther de-listed or taken from Federal protection into the FWC control so that she may kill them as nuisance animals.

The commission board voted in a bear hunt to kill 320 bears after 20 years of being protected and only removed from the protected list in 2012. The wildlife in Florida has seen great loss of habitat as Florida nears the 20 million mark of human inhabitants. Along with lack of enough habitat the wildlife has been robbed of their food sources such as the saw palmetto berries, a vital part of a bear's diet especially when the are ripe at the time when they must pack on the pounds to prepare for hibernation and denning in which they lose up to 25% of their body weight. A female (sow) bear will not reproduce if she does not gain enough weight.

Over 100 species of animals including reptiles depend on the saw palmettos. These bushes provide much need shelter and food from their pulp as well as the berries. The Foresty Service burn them off regularly setting back the number that will be ready for the bears to eat. Trees that supply acorns, nut and other berries are dozed down and only pine trees left in the woods which supply no food to the wildlife. FWC has know about the heavy harvesting of the saw palmetto berries for years and never did anything about it, yet they are entrusted to protect the food sources for our wildlife. The board of commissioners has become nothing more than an elite hunt club pandering to the hunters who have groomed them for years to get them more hunting opportunities and land to hunt on and they've answered their call. State License plates were sold with message like "Conserve Wildlife" on them, duping people into believing that their contributing would save wildlife from death no make way for hunters to kill them. This recent revelation along with the approved bear hunt has caused environmental and activists to file lawsuits against the FWC.

Recently, Oct. 01, 2015 an emergency injunction was filed to stop the bear hunt but Judge Robert Reynolds sided with the FWC and the bear hunt is set to start on Oct. 24th of this year. At of now the number of permits sold to hunters equals the number of guesstimated number of bears. The counting of bears that began in 2014 is not scheduled to be completed until 2016 but because of a few attacks by bears upon humans and animals where negligence was involved, FWC was pushed to have a bear hunt.

Several legislators signed a letter that was sent to executive director Nick Wiley with the FWC to educate people, require bear proof trash cans or have a hunt. Having been waiting for the time to be right to have a bear hunt, the FWC jumped on it. And in spite of 40,000 emails, thousands of calls etc not in favor of the hunt they ignored the majority of the citizens that showed concern. Along with many biologists, scientists and bear specialists that made their disfavor of the hunt known. Clearly, the FWC does not work for all of the citizens of the state but only those who scratch their backs and have been showing up at meetings over the years to make sure that FWC does what they want them to. The other citizens didn't even realize what was going on until the announcement of the proposed bear hunt and they went researching to find out how this all came about. Clearly, this commission needs overhauled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.103.48.136 (talk • contribs) 01:05, 22 October 2015