Four endangered predators found dead within one week in Florida. Here's why
Florida Four endangered predators found dead within one week in Florida. Here's why
Vehicle strikes were responsible for the deaths of four Florida panthers in the first week of May in the southwest part of the state.
Photo from Jeffrey Eisen via Unsplash
Four critically endangered Florida panthers were hit and killed by vehicles in the span of one week, an unusually deadly period for the rare species.
One of the panthers was 8-10 months old, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The spate of deaths started May 1, when a 1-year-old Florida panther was found dead on State Road 29, then a male estimated to be 4-5 years old died the next day, McClatchy News reported.
Two days after that on May 4, a panther under the age of 1 was found dead, according to the FWC's Panther Pulse.
The most recent fatality, discovered May 6, was a 2- or 3-year-old female panther also killed on State Road 29, for a total of four panthers in the first week of May.
All were killed by vehicles in southwest Florida in either Hendry or Collier County.
Florida's state animal has experienced increasing deaths from vehicle strikes in the last two decades, officials said. Eight out of nine deaths documented this year have come from vehicles. Rodney Cammauf
Photo from the National Park Service
'As the state grows, suitable habitat for panthers and other wildlife shrinks,' according to the FWC. 'Florida panthers normally live in remote, undeveloped areas. But as both the number of panthers and the number of people living and recreating in Florida grows, so does the chance of an encounter with a panther.'
The deaths are the latest blow to a species with fewer than 250 adult Florida panthers estimated to be left in the wild.
'We are not going to stop the growth of our state, and in many ways, growth is a good thing,' Traci Deen, the president and CEO of Conservation Florida, told McClatchy News in December. 'But as we grow, we have to increase the pace of land conservation, or we will lose species like the Florida panther.'
The number of panthers killed by vehicles has been on the rise since the year 2000, according to the FWC.
The species needs a lot of room to roam, with males claiming territories of 150 to 200 square miles, according to the Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.
State Road 29, which runs through southwest Florida, is a particularly deadly corridor for the species. Three of the nine panthers found dead this year were struck while crossing that road, records show.
OL Olivia Lloyd
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Olivia Lloyd is a National Real-Time Reporter for McClatchy covering the Southeast. She is based in South Florida and graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Previously, she has worked for Hearst DevHub and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
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