The Florida panther is the most endangered of all North America's remaining cats, with only a handful of individuals restricted to a small, rapidly shrinking corner of southwest Florida. Panthers, a subspecies of cougar, were once quite numerous across the Southeast, ranging from east Texas through Mississippi and Georgia to the Atlantic, and north to Tennessee. These cats are all that remain of native cougars east of the Mississippi.
Support NWF's conservation efforts by symbolically adopting a Florida panther today.
Habitat destruction poses the most significant threat to the Florida panther's survival. Without aggressive measures to conserve this cat's habitat and protect the few remaining individuals, this rare cat will disappear forever. In the long term, the Florida panther's survival will depend on the cat's ability to expand into additional parts of its historic range.
Due to Florida's rapidly expanding human population, residential and commercial development increasingly encroaches on the panther's dwindling habitat. The Fort Myers and Naples metropolitan areas of Florida are two of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. and their counties have traditionally permitted sprawl to extend beyond "urban growth boundaries." Development abuts the primary protected public lands that panthers depend upon. Roughly half of the cat's remaining habitat is privately owned, complicating efforts to protect panthers.
Habitat loss and fragmentation pose grave threats to the remaining panthers by limiting their ability to expand their populations and separating cats from one another. This in turn leads to inbreeding and genetic problems in smaller subpopulations, which pose nearly insurmountable odds of recovery. This isolation also increases territorial fights among cats, which are often fatal. Roads fragment habitat and are another direct threat to panthers. Collisions with vehicles are the leading human cause of panther mortality.
The loss of top-level predators like the Florida panther causes imbalances in the ecosystem from which they have been removed, allowing overpopulation and declines among other species that share their habitat.
Support NWF's conservation efforts by symbolically adopting a Florida panther today.
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