Florida Wildlife: Two Different Situations

never seen either animal but no surprise to me that Florida, this forsaken awful state would have such a law

Last year an alligator ate a child in Disneyworld. I had no idea that the Florida panther was so few in number these days, and I live in Florida- in an area where if they were plentiful there would probably be more panthers.

I have never seen a Florida panther but I do know there are sites to protect them that seek donations and have petitions to sign. Perhaps it might be time to consider creating a nature reserve for them.

Most of the zoos here in Florida have panthers in them. I even adopted a panther at the Palm Beach Zoo, where my money went to help feed and care for the animal. And I'm probably one of the lucky few who have actually seen a panther in the wild (the one I saw was a mother with her two cubs). It's a shame that they could possibly be gone forever within a few decades.

I haven't. I think what few remain are deep in Everglades National Park and stay away from where people may come.

Panthers have been documented over much of Florida's landscape. The largest concentration of about 200 of them are South of Lake Okeechobee Florida. It is interesting that there is only 6 million acres in that part of Florida but according to US Fish and Wildlife Service land requirements based on panther gender demographics there should be 12 million acres available to this many panthers. So, many people now understand that rather than being very rare as in the past they have become common to the point of being overpopulated considering not enough land available. The cats now routinely feed upon private pets (e.g. dogs, cats, goats, chickens whatever) and commercial livestock (e.g. cattle). They also roam heavily populated urban areas such as Naples,Ft Myers Florida. Actually their is now a study underway that may finally expose the truth that this lion shouldn't ever have been classified as Endangered since it is considered by some geneticists as the same as the other thousands of mountain lions roaming America - time will tell on that species review being conducted. A good book that verifies this was written around 1996 titled "Swamp Screamer" by Charles Fergus in which he documented on pgs 118 and 119 that a biologist and geneticist back then discovered that the panther had already been hybridized in the 50's due to Eglds National Park buying panthers from a roadside zoo :The Piper Facility" in Bonita Springs, Florida and let them loose in the Everglades park. Then more recently in the current program agencies did the same thing with cats from Texas which in reality created a new breed of cat that is known to be larger and with little fear of man or cities. Unless one is somewhat local and involved in an issue such as this very complicated oneit is easy to be misled - thus I have engaged here. One place to go and find out more than what the government people and agenda driven environmental groups who make money off this species publish is a facebook page Hopefully you all will have a good day and interest in our panther is always appreciated.

Last year an alligator ate a child in Disneyworld. I had no idea that the Florida panther was so few in number these days, and I live in Florida- in an area where if they were plentiful there would probably be more panthers.

Last year an alligator ate a child in Disneyworld. I had no idea that the Florida panther was so few in number these days, and I live in Florida- in an area where if they were plentiful there would probably be more panthers.