Editor's note: The following story is one of several being published on WGCU.org today in conjunction with the companion piece -- "Preserve or develop? Race against time to protect Florida’s Wildlife Corridor" by Jimmy Tobias at "The Florida Trident," a local investigative news outlet focusing on government accountability and transparency across Florida.
Take all the streets, lakes, schools and sports team mascots in Florida named “Panther” and they will likely exceed the actual number of big cats left in the state’s wild areas. There was a time not long ago when that wasn’t the case.
More than a century ago there were at least 500 panthers throughout the southeastern U.S., from Georgia and Alabama west to Louisiana and Mississippi, and from Tennessee and South Carolina down to the Florida Keys.
Facing habitat loss and hunger from urban sprawl, as well as being hunted either because the panther was feared or the hunter wanted the animal’s soft pelt, panther numbers dwindled quickly.
Panther hunting was banned in 1958. In 1967, Florida panthers were the first animal to be put on the federal Endangered Species List, and in 1973 the puma relative was named a Florida protected species.
At one point in the mid-1990s, there were only about 10 Florida panthers known to exist. Quick-thinking scientists imported eight female pumas from Texas to supplement the gene pool and 10 years later the number of Florida panthers was about the same as today — roughly 200.
That’s the current size of the last known breeding population in the world, panthers at home in Lee, Collier, and Hendry counties that have a common border with each other in Southwest Florida. To the west is the Gulf of Mexico, and to the east is more than a million acres of largely undeveloped panther country amongst hardwood hammocks, cypress swamps, and pine in the Western Everglades.
Since the near-extinction event in the mid-1990s, the population of Florida’s state animal has managed to stay above 100 despite consistent deadly run-ins with cars, trucks, and the occasional train.
“Panther-vehicle mortality, a leading cause of documented panther deaths, will increase and this could lead to extinction of the Florida panther.”Amber Crooks of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida
At least 250 Florida panthers have been killed or died mostly under non-natural circumstances between the beginning of 2014 and now, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A handful of inter-species conflicts and other issues have contributed as well.
The species has been able to have enough kittens each year to keep up with the deaths, but even the most sober environmentalists are sure that will change for the worse if a pair of huge residential developments planned for the eastern reaches in Lee and Collier counties finally get the legal go-ahead they’ve been waiting for.
That’s because environmental reviews of the 10,000-home Kingston project in Lee County and the 2,750-home Bellmar subdivision in Collier County by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found as many as 23 more panthers would be hit and killed, every year, just due to the mere presence of the two new villages, their new roadways, and the thousands of additional vehicle trips through panther county — yet the agency gave the green-light to both projects anyway.
More on the Wildlife Corridor
- Florida Wildlife Corridor Project founder reflects on first year of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act
- DeSantis signs wildlife corridor expansion; $200M provided
- Florida wildlife corridor expansion eyed; nearly $100 million possible
- SW Florida land deal teed up; $122M for Collier, Hendry acres, tied to statewide wildlife corridor
That would roughly double the average number of panther deaths per year, while the number of kitten births would remain the same or even decrease as more and more female panthers are hit and killed.
“There are only eight panthers born each year,” said Julianne Thomas, a panther expert with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. “It doesn’t take a lot of advanced math to think this is unsustainable.”
The only reason Bellmar and Kingston are not already under construction is due to a successful legal Hail Mary from lawyers at Earthjustice and other major environmental nonprofits that convinced a federal judge to put the brakes on any new permits of the type needed due to non-compliance with the Endangered Species Act.
Many of the other legal safeguards that would keep developments like Bellmar and Kingston from being built atop wetlands with protected panther habitats have been dismantled or weakened in recent years,
“The regulations have been completely eroded to the developer's favor, and the panther is going to pay the price,” said Patty Whitehead of the Responsible Growth Management Coalition of Southwest Florida. “There is no mechanism now to protect panthers. There isn’t. It’s gone in Florida. It’s gone.”
Extra from WGCU: The Wildlife Corridor
- Changing landscape: As agriculture gives way to planned developments, many worry the Florida panther is on a path to doom. Environmentalists say planned communities — Kingston in eastern Lee and Bellmar in eastern Collier and both the size of small cities — could hurtle the Florida panther from the Endangered Species List to extinction.
- Loss of land: An analysis undertaken by the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning explores possible impacts of development and sea level rise on Florida’s agricultural lands and their conservation values. The study suggests that about 120 acres of agricultural land a day — or almost 45,000 acres a year — could be lost between now and 2070.
- Sweeping law: When Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act into law in the summer of 2021, the occasion was met with a flurry of glowing headlines and general celebration by conservationists across the state. The “sweeping law,” as National Geographic called it, was meant to conserve millions of acres across Florida, connecting open spaces and key habitats to help safeguard the future of imperiled animals like Florida panthers, black bears and more.
Also about the Wildlife Corridor
- Central Florida Public Media: Why the Florida Wildlife Corridor couldn't save Split Oak Forest
It is hoped the Florida Wildlife Corridor will continue to encourage panthers to migrate north, as several females with kittens have been photographed doing in recent years, as backers of wildlife corridor continue to buy land to contribute to the greenway.
At a protest opposing awarding the necessary permit to the developer of the Bellmar Village in Naples late last year, Elise Bennet, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Florida director and senior attorney, said Florida panthers need every last inch of habitat remaining if they are to survive and recover.
“And we know this permit is only the tip of the spike leading the way to drive even more urban development into our panther's vital habitat, committing the species down the road to extinction," she said. "This is unacceptable.”
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Joining forces to produce segments in an extensive look at the Florida Wildlife Corridor and conservation across the state of Florida was the Florida Center for Government Accountability with writer Jimmy Tobias in The Florida Trident, WGCU Public Media, Central Florida Public Media(previously 90.7 WMFE), and the Oviedo Community News.
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