A black bear in a neighborhood of Daytona Beach, Florida, last year (Photo : Reuters)
After the state of Florida had lifted restrictions on shooting black bears, hunters managed to gun down 295 of these creatures during the weekend.
The chase included over 3,200 people who embarked on the statewide bear "harvest" with pistols, shotguns, revolvers and crossbows and bows.
The cull that was due to last week saw the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission set a maximum quota of 320 black bears. However, by the end of Saturday, over 207 bears got registered as dead and officials initiated the end of the bear-hunt.
According to the Commission, it issued the permits to hunt the black bears because their population had up-surged to over 3000 from several hundred back in the 1970s. The commission also said that the rising population was raising safety concerns, and something had to get done, The Guardian reported.
Before the hunt, the commission reported that it frequently received numerous calls from Florida residents about nuisances caused by the bears, such as those of raiding of rubbish dumpsters, especially in the last two years.
Amid the hunt, animal rights activists responded in fury to the agency's resolution. What is more, one activist named Chuck O'Neal even went to the extent of filing a lawsuit citing flawed science used by the Florida state with an objective of attempting to block the cull.
On top of this, Laura Bevan, southern regional director of Humane Society of the United States said that is was a horrific day when the incredible creatures got slaughtered, Scripps Media reported.
On Sunday, several rights groups pleaded for the ending of the hunt on the basis that the numbers of bears that got killed in actual terms were much more than the reported numbers.
After just two days, the agency ended the controversial black bear hunt.
