Proceedings of the Ninth Mountain Lion Workshop - Carnivore ...

Challenges and Opportunities Facing Florida Panther Conservation –
Can We Increase the Size of the Box?
Darrell Land, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, 566 Commercial
Blvd., Naples, FL 34104-4709, USA, Darrell.Land@myfwc.com
Chris Belden, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 1339 20th Street,
Vero Beach, FL 32960, USA, Chris_Belden@fws.gov
Since a breeding population of Florida panthers (Puma concolor coryi) was officially
verified in 1978 south of Lake Okeechobee, all panther conservation efforts have been
directed towards ensuring the survival of this small population. These efforts have
included preservation of >230,000 acres of habitat, installation of wildlife crossings in
highways, improved habitat management practices that benefited both panthers and their
prey, and panther genetic restoration to mimic natural gene flow into this isolated and
small population.
The panther population has grown over the past 20 years from as few as 20-30 to 80-100
cats today. The reproducing portion of this population occurs south of the
Caloosahatchee River, a dredged waterway that flows from Lake Okeechobee westward
to the Gulf of Mexico, in a fairly contiguous 1.7 million acres that is still threatened by
habitat loss and/or degradation. Female panthers and all known reproduction have been
documented only south of this river; young males occasionally cross it and disperse
northward into south-central Florida (Maehr et al. 2002a).
Florida’s human population nearly doubled in size from 9.7 million people in 1980 to
>18 million in 2006 and this growth has put increasing pressure on wildlife habitat and
rural land uses such as cattle ranching and agriculture. Local and State conservation land
buying programs continue to preserve habitat but these programs cannot keep pace with
the rapid inflation of property values. Average price per acre has risen from $3,700 to
$12,000. The remaining 500,000 acres in private ownership are not only threatened by
development, but by loss of functionality, due to habitat fragmentation or severing of key
linkages among habitat patches. According to population viability models, a population
of 80-100 panthers is minimally viable over a 100 year projection; a reduction in size
below 50 animals is in danger of extinction (Maehr et al. 2002b, Root 2004, and Kautz et
al. 2006). The current breeding range is 70% publicly-owned and if we were to lose the
remaining 30% (either direct loss or loss of functionality), the population would shrink in
size.
Purchasing panther habitat has worked well in the past, but funds are limited. Rising
property prices and a weak economy are creating conditions where conservation land
purchases are not able to secure large tracts and cannot compete with other land
development pressures. A new conservation tool is the Rural Land Stewardship (RLS)
program that provides incentives for private property owners to maintain wildlife habitat,
wetlands, water recharge areas, and agriculture on their lands. Development is allowed
on less environmentally-sensitive lands in exchange for preservation of lands with higher
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