Photo by Caitlin Jacobs
An endangered Florida panther walks past a motion-sensing camera at the JB Ranch south of Immokalee beneath a recent full moon. The camera, strapped to a gate post, is part of an ongoing study of how frequently panthers are killing ranchers' newborn calves. Defenders of Wildlife provided the cameras for the project, jointly funded by the University of Florida-Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They study involves tagging calves in the ear with radio transmitters to keep track of their fate. Caitlin Jacobs/UF-IFAS.
The new year is just over a week old, and it already hasn't been kind to the Florida panther.
A third panther was found dead this year in Collier County, this one on Saturday, at U.S. 41 and a half-kilometer west of Manatee Road. The 4-year-old panther was an uncollared female, reported Dave Onorato, associate research scientist with the Florida Panther Project. A vehicle hit the panther, he said in a news release.
The body will be transported to the FWC Wildlife Research Lab in Gainesville for a necropsy. The remains will be archived at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Two other panthers were found dead in Collier County this year: a 4-5-year-old male along State Road 82, nearly four kilometers west of State Road 29, on Jan. 2; and a 3.5-year-old male Jan. 5 in a tomato field south of Oil Well Road.
In 2011, FWC reported 24 panther deaths, nine of which were caused by vehicle crashes.
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