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Panthers are also known as cougars, pumas, and mountain lions. USFWS |
The Florida panther is one of the most endangered animals in the world. Though it once roamed freely throughout Florida and much of the southeastern United States as far west as eastern Texas and north to Tennessee, only about 70 panthers now remain in national and state parks, refuges and nearby private lands in southern Florida.
The Florida panther, Puma concolor coryi, is one of more than 20 subspecies of cougar. It has been isolated from other cougar populations for at least 100 years. It is smaller than cougars found in the American West and has longer legs, smaller feet and a shorter, darker coat. Florida panthers often have right angle crooks at the ends of their tails, whorls of hair in the middle of their backs and white flecks of fur on their necks, which might be the result of tick bites.
The Florida panther establishes a home range, or area that it uses habitually, where it finds food, shelter, water and access to mates. Males establish home ranges that are larger than, but overlap with, the home ranges of females. Young male panthers often find themselves without home ranges of their own, forcing them to live on the edges of other males' established territories. The transient panther must kill the established male before he can mate or establish his own territory.
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Panthers use scent and sound
to communicate. |
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D. W. Pfitzer/USFWS |
Panthers use scrapes and vocalizations to communicate with one another. Scrapes are piles of soil, leaves or pine needles with urine or feces on top, which notify other panthers of their presence and warn against territory encroachment. From the scent of the scrape, other panthers can identify the gender of the panther that left it and how long ago it was left. Panthers are generally quiet, but sometimes communicate through vocalizations described as chirps, peeps, whistles, purrs, moans, screams, growls and hisses.
The Florida panther is a strict carnivore. About 90 percent of the animal's diet is feral hog, white-tailed deer, raccoon and armadillo. Sometimes, the panther will consume rabbits, rats, and birds or an occasional alligator. To stay healthy, the panther must eat one deer or hog each week.
Panthers, like most cats, are solitary hunters and are most active during dawn and dusk when their prey also is likely to be active. During the day, especially during summer, panthers rest in the shade of a palmetto thicket for as long as 18 hours. At dusk, panthers will stalk their prey by moving silently and then spring for the kill with their front claws extended. Panthers eat as much of the prey as they want and then rake leaves, twigs and debris over the remains to make what scientists call a cache to hide and protect the carcass from scavengers. If the weather is not too warm and humid, the panther sometimes returns to feed for several days.
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Panthers are most active at dawn and dusk, resting in the shade during the day. |
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Photo © Brian F. Call |
Panthers are polygamous animals. Males reach sexual maturity at three years old and females at two. Mating pairs will usually remain together for a week, sleeping and hunting together. Panther births are most common in the late spring, when prey is also most readily available, although they can occur at any time of the year. The female panther is solely responsible for raising her litter of one to four kittens.
For the first two months, panther kittens remain in the den even when the mother leaves to hunt. By two months, kittens begin to accompany their mother on hunting forays, hiding nearby while she hunts and then joining her after the prey is killed. By a year old, the young cats can catch small prey on their own. At two years of age, they leave their mothers to establish their own home ranges. Females often establish a range that overlaps that of their mothers, while young males are usually forced out of their mother's range by older males.
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A Florida Panther in its natural habitat.
George Gentry/USFWS |
Panthers will live to be about 12 years old in the wild and 16 or more in captivity. Males have a tougher time because of competition for females, but if a male can survive its first five years, it's likely that he will live to be at least 10 years old. Panther deaths are most often caused by fighting within the species, disease and collisions with vehicles, though the construction of underpasses along highways in panther habitat have greatly reduced collisions in recent years.
Important habitat for the Florida panther is being destroyed daily. The panther requires large blocks of forested land to survive, but more than one-third of the forested land in south Florida was cleared for agricultural and residential development between 1936 and 1987. By the late 1980s, Naples, Florida was one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.
The Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, established in June 1989 under the authority of the Endangered Species Act to protect valuable habitat for the Florida panther and other vulnerable species, lies 20 miles east of Naples and links together lands that the panther occupies.
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Texas cougars, such as the one in the background, have been brought to Florida to add genetic diversity to the endangered Florida panther population. |
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Photo © Brian F. Call |
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Florida biologists capture panthers to attach radio transmitters around their necks. They use the radiotelemetry data they collect to learn more about this endangered creature. Forty schools in southwest Florida help monitor radio-collared Florida panthers and their habitats as part of the Florida Panther Posse program.
In an effort to save the Florida panther from extinction, biologists breed the species in captivity and release kittens in the wild. They have also introduced Texas cougars in Florida in an effort to bring much needed genetic diversity to the small population of Florida panthers.
