Gov. Millard Caldwell (on the far left) with friends after turkey hunting in Wakulla County, 1948. (State Archives of Florida)
Among the less publicized constitutional amendments Florida voters will decide next month is a measure that would enshrine the right to hunt and fish in the state’s Constitution with Amendment 2.
The ballot language says this:
“Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to preserve forever fishing and hunting, including by the use of traditional methods, as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife. Specifies that the amendment does not limit the authority granted to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission under Section 9 of Article IV of the State Constitution.”
“Yes, that’s the language that’s in the statute, but a future legislator could come in in a few years and say, ‘We don’t like this anymore,” said Martha Guyas, Southeast fisheries policy director for the American Sportfishing Association based in Tallahassee, which supports the initiative.
“Whereas if it’s in the Constitution, that’s really a decision for the voters. It’s a little bit more stable in that situation,” she said.
Yes on 2 has been endorsed by numerous conservation organizations, such as Ducks Unlimited, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, the American Sportfishing Association, and more.
Nearly every member of the Florida Legislature in 2023 voted for the resolution that placed the measure on the 2024 ballot as a constitutional amendment, with Republicans and Democrats alike almost completely in unison. (Broward County Democrat Sen. Lauren Book was the lone exception).
Miami-Dade County Republican Alex Rizo, a co-sponsor of the resolution in the House, said in a video interview with the Miami Herald that, as a fisherman, he “grew up in a time when it was very limited, state government intrusion in what you could and couldn’t catch, for example. And as I’ve become an adult … I’ve seen just more and more and more imposition on people with what you can catch. What you can keep. The size and everything else.”
Advocates cite the fact that funding from hunting and fishing licenses goes directly to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) as another reason why environmentalists support the measure.
“Sportsmen and women are the backbone of the North American Model of Conservation, as self-imposed excise taxes on sporting gear and the purchase of fishing and hunting licenses generate most of the funding for fish and wildlife agencies,” said Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris in a statement provided by the Yes on 2 campaign. “We are honored to stand alongside all who love the great outdoors to ensure the traditions we love are available for future generations to enjoy.”
But opponents warn that Amendment 2 is problematic, to say the least.
“Don’t fall for the slick advertising — Amendment 2 is much more nefarious than simply providing a right to hunt, which is already protected under existing state law,” said Kate MacFall, Florida state director for the Humane Society of the United States.
“Amendment 2 is a dangerous power grab that strips away the protections safeguarding our critically important marine sciences and wildlife, enshrining cruel and unnecessary activities in our state’s most sacred document.”
‘Traditional methods’
A fact sheet provided by the NoTo2.org campaign argues that the phrase “traditional methods” in the ballot language is “intentionally vague” and will “enshrine in our constitution barbaric practices like body-crushing traps, strangling snares, bear hunting with hounds, and gill nets — all widely outlawed for their cruelty.”
A ban on gill nets was put into the Florida Constitution in 1994 by more than 70% of voters. That amendment limited use of nets for “catching saltwater finfish, shellfish, or other marine animals by prohibiting the use of gill and other entangling nets in all Florida water, and prohibiting the use of other nets larger than 500 square feet in mesh area in nearshore and inshore Florida waters.”
During the Florida FWC Commission meeting on Sept. 18, Chairman Rodney Barreto asked Chief Conservation Officer George Warthen to clarify whether Amendment 2 would lift the net ban now in the state Constitution, as critics contend.
“Our interpretation is that that would have no bearing on existing net limitation act in the Constitution,” Warthen said, referring to the 1994 Constitutional Amendment.
“So, those things need to be read in concert, and we don’t see that language in the current amendment having a negative impact on existing net limitation acts or the commission’s ability to do their duty in regulating fish and wildlife in Florida.”
“I want to make sure to clarify the record because there’s a lot of misinformation going on out there, and it doesn’t actually — if the amendment were to pass — it doesn’t take away any of the authority that this commission has on rule making and so on and so forth, correct? It doesn’t alter anything?” said Barreto.
“That’s correct,” Warthen said.
Advocates argue the amendment is necessary because other states have flirted with banning hunting and fishing, such as Oregon. In 2022, an initiative there would have made it illegal to “slaughter livestock for food, or to kill rats, mice, or other vermin and pests.” That measure failed to get enough signatures to appear on the ballot, however (an effort has since begun to get the same measure on the 2026 Oregon ballot).
Kristen Rickman, emergency response team director with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), called attention to that measure “a distraction.”
“This really isn’t anything that’s really on anyone’s radar. And I think the introduction of a possible amendment in Florida is just a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. No one’s trying to ban hunting in Florida at this point, and it’s already protected under the current wildlife codes. It’s protected by statutes already.
Distraction
James Scott, executive committee chair of the Florida Sierra Club, said the powers that be in Tallahassee are happy to have this measure on the ballot as they seek to stop two more controversial constitutional amendments this cycle on recreational cannabis and abortion rights.
James Scott via Florida Sierra Club
“Ask yourself why they would put that measure on the ballot this year?” he said. “Because the NRA and the American Sportsmen Foundation have been looking for years — trophy hunting groups for years — have been trying to put this on the ballot, but why 2024? ”
He then answers his own question.
“It’s a politically convenient moment to turn out conservative hunters and anglers, because you have a lot of folks who are going to be driven just to vote because they legalize pot or protect the right to choose,” he said.
St. Petersburg-based Democratic Rep. Lindsay Cross, who usually votes in concert with the Sierra Club, said that her experience having worked for the Florida Wildlife Corridor [Foundation] inclines her to support the amendment.
It’s important, she said, for the conservation to have a “big tent.”
“Anglers and hunters have been some of our original conservationists,” Cross said.
“We have to make it sure that our state agencies still have the power to set hunting and fishing regulations and that we’re not expanding it to black bears and panthers, but it’s part of our economy. It’s part of our conservation ethic here to allow people to access the resources, and if we continue to have money through hunting and fishing licenses that can go directly to stocking, doing exotic removal of plants and animals, and conserving more land and water.”
The Republican Party of Florida has endorsed the measure, while the Florida Democratic Party opposes it.