Politics
Florida black bear hunt exposes emotional divisions among animal rights activists, hunters
Most people who won permits to participate in the first Florida black bear hunt since 2015 came away empty-handed. Jeff Nemeth wasn’t one of them — he and his son harvested a 503-pound bear on a private plot in the Panhandle last month.
Nemeth, 57, of Inverness estimated he put in 100 hours of research to prepare and spent $4,000 to $5,000 in travel and gear fees. He plans to shell out an additional $5,000 to an Ocala taxidermist for a full-body mount of the 8-foot-3 animal.
“It’s a lifetime hunt,” he said.
Nemeth was one of 52 hunters to kill a Florida black bear out of 172 permits issued during the state’s first hunt in a decade, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission figures. The controversial hunt — which took place from Dec. 6 to 28 — used a lottery system to grant permits to the limited number of hunters. Each permit holder was allowed to harvest one bear.
The Florida hunt exposed deep emotional divisions among animal rights activists and hunters. In social media forums and in dueling media interviews, the groups fiercely debated the morals and heritage of hunting, the science of bear biology and its ecosystem — arguing even about the Biblical aspects of whether God would approve.
Many animal rights activists entered the lottery to win permits with no plans to use them — only to keep them away from hunters. These activists said data the wildlife commission used to support the hunt, which showed 53% statewide increase in bear populations since 2002, was outdated because it was collected in 2014 to 2015.
For its part, the agency said Florida black bear population counts can’t be taken more frequently than the length of one generation, or 10 years. The Commission said the hunt was intended to slow bear population growth and manage the species’ numbers before they outgrow their habitat.
Florida plans to make the hunt an annual event, although details about next season’s dates have not been released. Hunter success rates and the number of unused permits will be used to evaluate 2025 data and inform future hunts, spokesperson Shannon Knowles said in an email.
“The goal was to put the permits in the hands of those who will use them for hunting,” Knowles said.
The ratio of hunting permits to bears hunted turned out to be similar to other states with similar hunt parameters, the Wildlife Commission said. It has promised a full harvest report to be released in the coming months.
Nemeth, a retiree, said he was impressed with how the Commission managed the hunt. A lifelong hunter, he moved to Florida five years ago from Michigan, where he often went bear hunting — but was never successful.
Nemeth secured a lease to hunt on private land in Eastpoint, southwest of Tallahassee and four hours north of his home. A few large, older bears had been seen on the property, scaring away deer. Nemeth scouted these “nuisance” animals for months, analyzing footage and laying out feed, before traveling with his son to make the kill in early December.
The first two days of the hunt, he said, were rainy and miserable. But the sun emerged on the third day, and he and his son, Rees Nemeth, 27, took their spots at a blind. The camouflaged structure let them observe and shoot undetected. Just before daybreak, they saw a bear come to a nearby corn pile to eat. They waited for a clean shot — and took it.
Nemeth said he plans to enjoy the dark red bear meat in stews and chilis, as well as grilled in teriyaki sauce.
“I’m not a trophy hunter,” he said. “I hunt for meat. My freezer is full of game — my two gators are in there, and I’ve got a couple pigs in there, a turkey, and we eat what we kill. And that’s how it is, you know, I think that’s the right way.”
Chuck Mitchell, 73, of Tallahassee feels differently. After spending $1,000 on lottery tickets, at $5 per entry for 200 chances, he also secured a hunting permit. But he did so to keep a bear from being killed. Each person could buy unlimited entries, although they couldn’t win more than one tag.
Mitchell has lived in Florida for 55 years and remembers the last bear hunt in 2015. No lottery system existed during that hunt; instead, the FWC sold an unlimited number of permits. The season was called off after just two days with 304 bears killed.
Although Mitchell describes himself as a hunter and fisher more than an animal rights activist, he doesn’t support what he described as killing bears for trophies. He kills only animals he can eat, he said, and bear meat can sometimes be unpalatable depending on the bear’s diet and fat content. While growing up in swampy North Carolina, he said, he would sooner kill and eat a raccoon or a possum than a bear.
He lives in Tallahassee adjacent to a nature preserve, where he often sees bears as close as 75 feet from his house. The shy animals never bother anyone, he said.
“You’re shooting something to prove you’re a big hunter,” he said. “Gun down a bear and call themselves a man.”
Not all bear hunters are men. Ashlyn Croff, 33, and her husband both entered the lottery to win a permit. She won; he didn’t. When she called to tell him, he hung up on her.
Croff has been hunting her entire life, heading out solo since she was 22 and “decided I don’t need any man to go with me.”
The Pensacola native hunted every day for 23 days to harvest a bear, occasionally letting her husband accompany her so as not to hurt his feelings. When she finally shot a 142-pound female in Wewahitchka, she was joined only by her 12-year-old son. It was one of the best experiences of her life, she said.
Croff knows the bear hunt had its critics. Like everyone who won a permit, she was offered $2,000 from Bear Warriors United, an Oviedo, Florida-based advocacy group, not to use her tag.
Although she appreciates these activists’ love for animals, she said, hunters love animals, too. Bears frequently attack her feeders and cameras, scaring off other game, like deer. That keeps her from putting sustainably caught food on her family’s table.
“While (activists are) eating their beef at home, a cow was killed for that. While they’re eating their hot dog, a little piggy was killed for that,” she said. “It’s the same exact thing, it’s just not a big, black, fuzzy bear that is so cute on all of the magazines and on TV.”
Activist Janis Ingham, 55, doesn’t eat bear, hamburgers or any other meat. The Casselberry resident has been a vegan for 38 years, a decision she made for ethical reasons. She bought 350 bear tags, winning one, out of concern that Florida’s decade-old bear counts were no longer accurate given recent development in Florida cutting into their habitats.
Ingham lives near the Black Bear Wilderness Area, a popular 7-mile hiking loop where she once spotted a bear herself. She described them as resilient, smart and social — a species to protect, not to hunt.
“This has become an awakening,” she said. “Many people … will pursue various avenues to try to put some guardrails in place so that this type of thing doesn’t have to happen again, where people have to buy lottery tickets to get a permit to try to protect a particular animal.”
Between about 40 and 50 activists won hunting permits. Unlike Mitchell, some didn’t pay the $5 required for an entry into the lottery system. Instead, they gave their names and information to large buyers who bought tickets on their behalf.
Angels in Distress, an anti-hunting nonprofit, partnered with Hurricane Pet Rescue to help people sign up and cover hunting license costs. The nonprofit’s director, Steve Rosen, told the Orlando Sentinel he spent $200,000 of his own money. Rosen declined to comment for this story, writing in all-caps via email, “Stop bothering me. You are only out for yourself, not the bears like most all media hacks.”
Levis Morales, a Broward County resident, heard about the hunt from his boss, who asked if he would be willing to sign up. He gave his information on a website, and a donor bought 300 tickets, the equivalent of $1,500, on his behalf. Morales was surprised to win a permit but proud to save a bear, he said.
Another permit winner, Karen Gray, who lives in Arizona, also gave her information to an animal rights group to buy permits on her behalf. A dog and cat rescue asked her if she would like to obtain a license so it would go unused and less bears would die, she said.
Gray declined to give the name of the rescue for fear of getting them in trouble or publicizing their plans. The rescue bought 350 tickets, costing $1,750, under her name.
“I hope it had some impact and less bears were murdered,” she said.
People from inside and outside Florida bought over 163,000 entries altogether, which would account for $817,000 in application fees alone. Out of the 172 permit winners, six came from outside the state, while the remainder were Florida residents.
The Wildlife Commission called the hunt a success. One hunter received a warning for a minor Wildlife Management Area violation, and no citations were issued, the agency said in a news release after the hunt. No wildlife violations were found.
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.
Florida’s 2026 Legislative Session opens Tuesday under the unmistakable shadow of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ final full year in office before term limits require a change in Tallahassee.
After DeSantis first took office in 2019, he set about reshaping Florida government, particularly following the COVID pandemic. Under his tenure, Florida has consistently ranked near the top in national comparisons for higher education, business formation and tourism — metrics the administration regularly touts as evidence of economic strength and growth.
At the same time, DeSantis’ policymaking has been deeply polarizing. From education reforms focused on culture-war fights and exerting influence over public universities, to aggressive immigration enforcement initiatives and high-profile clashes with Disney, his agenda has sharpened the state’s political divide.
He also exerted arguably the most power over the Legislature as any Governor in modern Florida history. But notably, entering his final year in office, that influence has waned.
Once viewed as a GOP rising star nationwide, his standing in the broader Republican electorate diminished after a decisive 2024 Presidential Primary loss. And he hasn’t appeared to foster a successor to take over once he departs office (more on that later).
Of course, the Regular Session won’t be the only chance for DeSantis to flex his policy muscle, with multiple Special Sessions apparently on the horizon (more on that later as well). This year will feature plenty of opportunities for DeSantis to either reassert his legacy — whether it be with property taxes, redistricting or elsewhere — or be stonewalled again by GOP lawmakers showing a renewed willingness to assert their authority.
As the gavel falls Tuesday, the focus will be on policy and process. But beneath it all run decisions that will help define how Florida remembers the DeSantis era.
Now, it’s onto our weekly game of winners and losers.
Winners
Honorable mention: Miami Hurricanes. The Miami Hurricanes have once again earned the chance to do something that has eluded the program for more than two decades: being crowned the top team in college football.
Nothing is a done deal yet, but Miami’s path to the championship has been especially notable. They defeated Texas A&M in Round 1 after many — especially Notre Dame fans — argued the College Football Committee never should have let Miami in the Playoff in the first place.
Their Round 2 matchup featured a face-off with last year’s champions, the Ohio State Buckeyes. Coincidentally, that’s the same team Miami played in their last championship game, when the referees robbed the Hurricanes of a second straight title on a ridiculous pass interference call on what should’ve been the game’s final play.
Consider that robbery avenged after the Hurricanes dominated a team many saw as the best in college football.
Cut to the semifinal matchup against a Cinderella team in Ole Miss in what turned out to be a classic. The site of that game? The Fiesta Bowl, the site of that aforementioned robbery. The Canes once again were victorious.
Having excised all demons, Miami will now play for the title in a de facto home game, with the championship game having been scheduled at Hard Rock Stadium, where the Hurricanes play at home during the regular season.
For a program that once defined the sport’s cutting edge, the moment carries weight well beyond a single postseason run. Miami’s path to the title game capped a season in which the Hurricanes moved from “improving” to “arrived,” navigating a playoff field designed to reward consistency, depth and resilience rather than brand name alone. In a new CFP era with expanded access and little margin for error, Miami cleared every bar put in front of it.
The playoff run has also brought plenty of financial upside through revenue, television exposure and merchandising, while reinforcing the university’s profile as a blue-blood program..
Miami has cycled through coaches and rebuilds since its last national title appearance. Advancing to the championship suggests the current approach — from roster construction to player development — is finally producing results that longtime fans have been waiting for.
Florida used to be the pinnacle of college football. Miami has a chance next week to cap off a miracle run and perhaps launch a new era of Sunshine State dominance. But for a team that wasn’t even expected to qualify for the College Football Playoff, they’re already playing with house money.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Charlie Crist. Crist didn’t announce an official comeback this week. He didn’t hold a rally or roll out a policy platform. But the numbers did plenty of talking on his behalf.
A political committee tied to Crist reported raising more than $725,000 in just seven weeks — an amount that appears to be unprecedented at this stage of a municipal contest in St. Petersburg and one that instantly elevated his potential candidacy for Mayor.
The committee’s report showed dozens of maxed-out checks and a donor list that looked far more like a statewide campaign than a municipal one. Labor groups, trial lawyers, longtime Democratic donors and Crist allies from across Florida all showed up early, and they showed up big.
In local races, money tends to trickle in slowly. Not here.
The fundraising answers lingering questions about Crist’s post-Congress political viability. After losses at the gubernatorial level and years away from local office, skeptics wondered whether donor enthusiasm would follow him home.
This report suggests the network is intact — and eager. The early surge suggests Crist can tap networks far beyond the city limits once he chooses to move forward, giving him plenty of resources to take on an incumbent Mayor.
The biggest winner: Marco Rubio. Rubio and the rest of the Donald Trump administration are celebrating what could be one of the most consequential foreign policy developments in recent U.S. history: the United States carrying out a military operation in Caracas that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.
Rubio’s role in shaping the U.S. response to Maduro long predates this week’s events. The Florida Republican has spent more than a decade making Venezuela a focal point of his foreign policy agenda. As a Senator, Rubio was an early and persistent critic of the Maduro regime, accusing it of narcoterrorism, corruption and electoral fraud and pushing for escalating sanctions, asset freezes and economic pressure on Caracas.
In 2025, the U.S. government doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million — the largest bounty ever placed on a foreign head of state — a move aligned with Rubio’s “maximum pressure” strategy.
Now Secretary of State, Rubio has articulated a three‑phase strategy for Venezuela post-Maduro that begins with stabilization, moves through economic recovery and aims toward a political transition. Central to that plan is leveraging control over Venezuelan oil revenues — an idea Rubio emphasized in congressional briefings and press statements this week.
In the days since Maduro’s capture, interim Venezuelan authorities have begun releasing political prisoners and signaled tentative cooperation with U.S. officials on diplomatic and oil‑sector matters, a dramatic shift from years of hostility.
There has been plenty of legitimate criticism of the U.S. conducting a military strike in a sovereign capital, particularly given Trump’s years of public aversion to regime change and forever wars.
But the administration is banking on this being a success, and if it is, Rubio’s fingerprints are all over it. His sustained focus on Venezuela helped shape the strategic framing and congressional briefing process behind the scenes, and this week’s outcomes reflect a culmination of years of advocacy on the issue.
Losers
Dishonorable mention: Jay Collins. The latest polling data of the 2026 Governor’s race is making it increasingly clear that the Lieutenant Governor’s prospects of gaining traction in the contest are sputtering.
A new Fabrizio, Lee & Associates survey lays out a GOP Primary contest where U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds holds a commanding lead among likely Republican voters — not just ahead of the pack, but far ahead in nearly every hypothetical matchup. In polling that included Collins, Donalds led him by nearly 40 points, with Donalds posting 45% support to Collins’ 6%.
Recent snapshots of the gubernatorial Primary landscape show Donalds consistently dominating the field, while contenders such as Collins, Paul Renner and others have mostly remained mired in low single digits.
For Collins, the numbers are stark: Despite a high-profile television ad buy in late 2025 and periodic commentary aimed at distinguishing himself from Donalds on issues, the polling needle hasn’t budged.
In a crowded GOP primary where Donalds has the Trump endorsement, sizable early fundraising and sustained public support, Collins faces a steep uphill climb just to break out of the single-digits. At this stage of the race, Collins’ potential run for Governor is looking less and less wise.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Miccosukee Tribe. Congress failed to override Trump’s veto of a bill designed to provide flood protections and land status clarification for the tribe’s Osceola Camp area in the Everglades.
The legislation at the center of the fight, the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act, was a bipartisan measure introduced by U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez that had cleared both the House and Senate without opposition. The bill would have formally expanded the Miccosukee Reserved Area to include Osceola Camp, which has long been home to tribal members.
But late last month, Trump used his veto power — one of his first vetoes of his second term — to reject the measure, casting it as an unnecessary taxpayer burden and linking it to the Tribe’s opposition to Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades. In his veto message, the President argued the Tribe “has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies” and that federal support for the project wasn’t warranted.
When lawmakers attempted to override that veto Thursday, they fell short of the two-thirds majority required in the House. The vote to uphold Trump’s decision fell at 236-188, with enough GOP members siding with the President to prevent the override.
The biggest loser: Post-Session vacation plans. If anyone was hoping to pencil in a quiet Spring getaway once the Legislature gavels out, this week delivered a reality check.
Florida’s Regular Session hasn’t even convened yet — it begins Tuesday and is scheduled to run until March 13 — but the calendar is already filling up beyond Sine Die. Gov. Ron DeSantis has formally called one Special Session for April to take up redistricting, and he has openly floated another focused on property tax changes.
The April Special Session is locked in. Lawmakers will be called back to Tallahassee to redraw congressional maps after an expected major decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. That alone would be enough to complicate travel plans for legislators, staffers, lobbyists and the press corps who typically treat March as the finish line. But DeSantis’ comments about a possible property tax Special Session suggest the April return trip may not be the last.
Property taxes are a politically heavy lift, one that would require significant debate, bill drafting and negotiation. If the Governor follows through, that means another round of committee-style work, floor sessions and late nights — all after lawmakers have already logged the usual grind of 60 days — or more.
Multiple Special Sessions will compress the expected downtime this year or erase it altogether. And don’t forget about the August Primary and Midterm Elections come November.
DeSantis has shown a willingness to use Special Sessions as an extension of his governing strategy, keeping lawmakers engaged — and available — to advance priorities on his timetable.
That may be useful for a Governor trying to maintain momentum and fight off lame-duck status. But for anyone hoping March would mark the end of long days, crowded calendars and burning hotel points in Tallahassee, you might want to keep the suitcase handy.
A sitting Congressman, a former Miss America, and a restraining order. At this point, only one mechanism remains to hold him accountable: the voters of his own district. The question is whether they will use it.
Rep. Cory Mills is a case study in how misconduct can persist in plain sight when the political and media environment is overwhelmed by chaos. His controversies are serious, numerous, and ongoing. Yet they have struggled to break through a news cycle saturated by Trump-era spectacle, real-time scandals, and selective outrage.
This is what falls through the cracks when everything is breaking news.
So why is no one paying attention?
The answer is not a lack of substance. It is a fundamental shift in how attention works in the modern media ecosystem. When there is a Watergate every day, none of them feels like Watergate anymore. Stories unfold live, social media sets the agenda minute by minute, and newsrooms are forced into constant triage. What once would have dominated front pages and cable panels for weeks is now lucky to survive a single editorial meeting.
Distance matters, too. As time passes without immediate consequences, sustaining public interest becomes harder. In the past, national media needed stories to fill airtime and column inches. Today, the news cycle generates itself endlessly. As a result, stories like Mills’ are quietly deprioritized, condensed, or shelved altogether.
That reality raises an uncomfortable political question: If a congressional seat is safely red, does Republican leadership care who occupies it? Based on the response — or lack thereof — to Mills’ conduct, the answer appears to be no.
On paper, Mills was once a strong candidate. A decorated military veteran with national security credentials, he entered the race for Florida’s 7th Congressional District ahead of the 2022 Midterms with a résumé Republicans typically celebrate. But since taking office, he has accumulated a pattern of controversies that raise serious questions about his judgment, personal conduct, and fitness for office.
Mills served in the U.S. Army from 1999 to 2003 and was deployed to Iraq, earning a Bronze Star. After leaving the military, he worked as a defense contractor and later co-founded PACEM, an arms manufacturing company that claimed to support U.S. allies abroad. The company later faced regulatory and financial trouble, including actions by the Florida Department of Financial Services that led to the closure of two facilities.
Despite those issues, Mills was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020 to the Defense Business Board, a Pentagon advisory group that President Joe Biden later dismantled. Mills announced his congressional run shortly afterward and won election in 2022 after redistricting transformed the district from blue to solidly red. He was re-elected in November 2024.
It is after that victory that Mills’ tenure began to unravel more publicly. Reports of domestic incidents involving multiple women — none of whom are his wife — began to surface. These include an alleged domestic disturbance involving Sarah Raviani and separate allegations by former Miss America Lindsey Langston, who accused Mills of misconduct, including revenge porn. Mills has repeatedly appeared in headlines for reasons unrelated to legislation or policy.
In August 2025, Langston filed for a restraining order against Mills, disclosing a recent romantic relationship. Mills remains legally married to Rana Al Saadi, though reports suggest the couple has been separated for several years.
Even before the domestic allegations escalated, Mills was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over whether he improperly profited from defense contracts while serving in Congress. The investigation, announced in August 2024, carried into the 119th Congress. Efforts to censure him have stalled without reaching the House floor.
The situation escalated further on February 21, 2025, when Washington, D.C., police responded to a domestic disturbance call at Mills’ residence. An arrest warrant was prepared but never signed. Under ordinary circumstances, that decision alone would have triggered sustained scrutiny.
Instead, it barely registered.
Fifteen years ago, this record would likely have generated weeks of national attention. Today, it competes with a political environment defined by a nonstop crisis. Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried has argued that Mills is shielded by what she calls a corruption blanket created by Trump’s return to power. After the warrant went unsigned, Fried said in a February press release, “It’s obscene but not surprising to think that Cory Mills may get away with domestic assault because he’s one of the President’s loyal soldiers.”
Where this leaves Mills is politically precarious but institutionally safe, for now.
The ethics investigation remains unresolved. The Justice Department declined to act. Republican leadership has shown no appetite for intervention, and Trump has remained silent.
At this point, accountability rests in one place only. The voters. If Mills faces consequences, it will not be because of an Ethics Committee, a prosecutor, or party leadership.
It will be because the people of Florida’s 7th Congressional District decide that chaos is no excuse, distraction is not absolution, and silence is not innocence.
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Nathaniel Lautier is a political journalist based in Florida. He is currently completing a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Flagler College in St. Augustine. As a veteran of the United States Air Force, Nathaniel previously served as an intelligence analyst before pursuing a career in journalism.
The post Nathaniel Lautier: A profile in courage — and bad decisions appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
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