FWC Florida Panther: https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/wildlife/panther/

Today is November 6th. On November 4th, friend, Clerk of Court Carolyn Timmann contacted me noting that the Florida Wildlife Commission https://myfwc.com had reported that on November 2, a panther was hit and killed in Martin County.

“The remains of an adult male Florida panther, UCFP368, were recovered on 11/2/2019 in Martin County, Florida (558227, 2984817). The suspected cause of death was vehicle collision.”

FWC: Panther Pulse reporting deaths and births: https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/wildlife/panther/pulse/

What a tragedy! Here in Martin County?

What: Male panther

When: 11-2-19

Time: approx. 1 am

Where: About two miles south of Indiantown on Highway 710 known as Beeline Highway

Sometimes we do not realize that these spectacular and rare creatures usually associated with West and Central Florida are sometimes also in our eastern Martin County ~ in our presence. While driving (especially through a Wildlife Management Area) we must be looking;  be aware; slow down; and share the road. In this unfortunate instance, Highway 710 (Beeline Highway) cuts right through prime wildlife habitat and is very near Indiantown, Florida. I have written earlier blog post about panthers being reported in western Palm City. They are here…

UCFP 368 PantherMortalityForm

Comments of interests of my conversations with very helpful FWC. Thank you to FWC for all of your work.

1.

“It is not rare for it to be uncollared.  In fact, most panthers are not radiocollared.  Currently we only have 7 panthers radiocollared; the current population range is 120-230.  In years past, we had many more panthers collared.  But our research focus has changed over the years and we don’t need to have as many collared at the moment.

We don’t have many panthers in that part of the state (Martin County) but they can turn up just about anywhere.  We had a couple of recent sightings (trail camera photos) from Corbet (management area south of there) so we knew at least one was in that general area.  There’s no way to know if this was the same one photographed.  Only time will tell if we get any more photos from there.

I’ve attached our data sheet (above) that we fill out when we recover panther carcasses.  Because of the location, this panther never passed through our office so we don’t have much of the information we typically collect (age, weight, etc).  That information will be determined when a necropsy is performed.  An FWC officer recovered the carcass and took it to a nearby field office.  The location information is on here though.”

Mark Lotz, Panther Biologist, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, Naples

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2.

Here is what I got from our panther team:

FWC recovered the remains of an adult male Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi), UCFP368, on 2 November 2019 in Martin County, Florida.  The suspected cause of death for UCFP368 is vehicular trauma.   The carcass was recovered at these coordinates: UTM easting 558227, northing 2984817.  The carcass is currently at the FWC Fish Eating Creek Field Office and will be sent to the FWC Research Lab in Gainesville for a complete necropsy. 

 We had received a couple of trail camera photos from the Dupuis WMA back in August so this road kill could possibly be that panther.

[The identifier UCFP368 stands for Uncollared Florida Panther Number 368]

Kipp Frohlich, Director, Division of Habitat and Species Conservation, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Tallahassee

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Like Facebook page for Panther Refuge:
https://www.facebook.com/FloridaPantherNWR/

Wildlife underpasses, the best alternative: https://www.bradenton.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article159037664.html; https://www.fwfonline.org/site/Articles/ArticleId/27/letter-to-the-editor-august-2018;