The death toll of Florida panthers for this year continues to rise after the fourth panther death was recorded on March 10.
Thirty-six Florida panther deaths were recorded by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commision in 2024.
Environmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, said they are concerned about the panthers but hope they can continue to work with the state to improve their living conditions.
The 4-year-old male panther was hit by a vehicle on SR29 in Collier County. All recorded deaths this year have been due to vehicle collisions, which was the primary cause of death among panthers in 2024.
The latest Florida panther death is the second in March and comes one year after The Nature Conservancy completed its latest expansion of the protected habitat for the panthers north of Collier County in Hendry and Glades counties.
The Florida panther’s historical range once extended from Florida to Louisiana throughout the Gulf Coast states and Arkansas. There are currently an estimated 200 Florida panthers left in the wild, mostly in South Florida.
In March of last year, The Nature Conservancy partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service to expand a patchwork area of untouched or agricultural land stretching 30,000 acres of critical habitat for panthers.
The Conservation Service worked with landowners in Hendry and Glades counties to either buy the land outright or secure the development rights of the land to protect it from future commercial development.
Senior Conservation Projects Manager Wendy Mathews said the wildlife corridor allows the panther population to move north and south of the Caloosahatchee River, expanding their land to live and avoid people. Mathews heads the conservancy’s Florida panther project and said that these corridors are directly linked to help prevent vehicle collision deaths.
“They’re so important in helping all animals avoid our roadways. As more and more people are moving to Florida, there are more and more cars on our highways,” she said.
In the video above, Broketail, a female Florida panther, roams with two kittens in the Florida Panther Dispersal Zone in South Florida on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (Video courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The corridors also aid the Florida Department of Transportation in making highways more panther-friendly.
In December, the FDOT received $6.1 million to upgrade state highways with wildlife underpasses and fencing. These work to provide safe ways for animals to cross highways and steer them away from walking across the roads.
Wildlife corridors, like those established by the conservancy, guarantee that animals crossing roads via underpasses will be entering protected land where they can live safely.
“When they were retrofitting SR80 to widen it to four lanes, they were able to incorporate several wildlife underpasses because that area had been protected with conservation easements,” Mathews said. “They knew both sides of the road were protected.”
Mathews stressed that this shows the importance of partnerships between state, federal and nonprofit agencies and donors who help them fund their goals.
While the Florida panther population is critically low, the conservancy remains optimistic.
“We are hopeful that we have the support and are making progress educating the public, but then at the same time land is being developed at a rapid rate for commercial development in areas that are vital for the panthers’ population,” she said.
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