Florida panthers need help

An article that ran on OutdoorNews.com today discussed the idea to bring Florida Panthers to Georgia’s Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge.

Here's some excerpts from the article that really caught my attention:

For the moment, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is focusing its efforts on ensuring the endangered Florida panther survives and thrives in the one area where it is known to have an established population: the swamps of deep southern Florida.

But a recently released report by the federal wildlife managers says that to ensure the survival of panthers, they eventually will have to widen their range. Among the handful of other spots the report names as most hospitable to the big cats is the more than 400,000-acre Okefenokee refuge.

I think it's a great idea to introduce the panther in other areas. Back in the

However, land owners are not wanting the panthers on their lands for obvious reasons. The panthers will hunt their livestock.

That's actually how the panther population became as tiny as it has. Settlers.

The panthers once ranged across the Southeast, a top predator feeding on deer, wild boar and other game.

But contact with colonial settlers proved deadly for the cats, which were hunted and shot by farmers protecting their livestock. The inexorable push of railroads, cities and highways into once wild forested areas also destroyed their habitat.

Listed by federal officials in the 1960s as endangered, they are considered one of the planet’s species most at-risk for extinction. By the 1980s they were found only in a large swath of swampy land in south Florida including the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park.

Their numbers had dwindled to an estimated 20 to 30 animals, a population so low that researchers found newborns were beset by sterility, heart defects and other problems triggered by inbreeding.

In a desperate bid to stave off extinction, wildlife managers in 1995 brought in eight female Texas panthers, a closely related species, to broaden the genetic pool. The gamble paid off, and the panthers rebounded to about 100 to 120 cats today.

Wow, you know humans have almost killed off an animal when we are excited over 100 animals. That is just disgusting in my opinion. Look at what we did to the North American Bison. There are NO accounted for bison in the world! NONE! That means every bison out there is known. Not very wild if you ask me.

So to the land owners, I do see your point. But put up a fence. After all, it is where the panthers used to roam. They called that area home way before your cattle did.

And some locals see it the same way.

“Cattle might be a concern, but I don’t see a problem,” said Demarus Johns, a rural resident who runs a paint store and contracting business. “We already have bears and gators, so what’s the difference?”

What are your thoughts on this? View the full article here.