Panthers in North Florida

Florida Fish and Wildlife likes to deny that there are any Florida Panthers in the northern parts of Florida despite numerous eyewitness reports over the years. Even when one was hit on the road in a neighboring county, there was still no official confirmation. Why do they do that? I've never been able to understand absolute denial when it would be easy enough to say that they just don't know. They say we don't have jaguarundis either, but we've seen them as well.

Anyway, Eglin AFB has motion sensor cameras set up in sensitive areas to catch human trespassers, but this is what they caught instead. Isn't it beautiful? I do hope, however, that we are never blessed with this kind of visitor at our house. I'm paranoid enough already with having to walk a small, delectable chihuahua at night.

Here's a recent newspaper article regarding panthers killed on the highway ......


http://www.crestviewbulletin.com/articles/weston-8146-panther-5em.html

I hate to see anything hit, but it's especially heart-breaking when it's endangered.

I agree ..... especially when you lose 15% of an already decimated population. At that rate, it will take them a long time to recover. However, we also need to consider what size Panther population is really sustainable as mankind continues to encroach on THEIR habitat. They are a beautiful animal .........

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0107-hance_floridapanther.html

Nice picture! Either that Panther is not hungry or he's following a sick/injured/old deer until he is. The Panther seems to be sniffing the brush.




Edited to add.... is that deer real ? lol

This message was edited Feb 4, 2010 12:31 AM

This message was edited Feb 4, 2010 12:32 AM

That's what I thought when I first saw it. My sister works at Eglin and says it is totally real.

I showed it to my uncle and he says that he saw panthers there twice while hunting in the mid-60's. So, have they been there all the time or is this one that has repopulated the area?

I known people in Jackson County (just west of Tallahassee) who swear that there have been panthers there all along.

Plus I don't think that this would be a decoy deer, which they do use sometimes in Florida - I don't know about the AFB specifically - because this is the entrance to an area where they do some bombing, hence the desire to keep people out. Makes me sweat a little thinking of the cat there.

Could that deer really be blissfully unaware of what it is about to receive?

I'd guess not totally impossible, though highly unlikely.

Resin

I question the authenticity...why is the date stamp blurred. To many photoshop things floating around. AND if your sister got it... that is theft from a government facility. They are beautiful animals that need to be psaved from becoming extinct. So much of prime panther land has been taken away from them forever.

This message was edited Feb 4, 2010 7:27 PM

Thank you, nanny_56, for implying that we were participating in a theft. She received this from a coworker in good faith and said that the people there believe it to be authentic.

This is the absolute last time that I ever try to share anything on DG and you seemed like such a nice person. Don't bother to respond.

Pillita,Please keep sharing.Don't let one bad apple spoil things for you.This is absolutely real as it has been in the local papers as well.Our property joins Blackwater state forest ,which then joins Eglin about two miles away.This is heavily forested swamp land and I have seen big cat tracks in my rambles.

Ditto!

You know guys this is not a contest. Pillita was not asking for your blessing on the photo, she was just TRYING to share information.

It would have been nicer had you kept your cynicism to yourself.

Pillita, Please do keep posting.

So am I....

This message was edited Feb 5, 2010 10:16 AM

I never entered any contest. I made a simple observation to what I was seeing and never told anyone to stop posting.
I was not going to comment on this thread any more, but I refuse to be charged with starting any controversy.

This thread brought back some memories of yesteryear. My wife and I used to travel to Maine quite often on vacation. One of my favorite spots was Baxter State Park which is about 100 miles north of Bangor, ME. Governor Percival Baxter donated 100,000 acres to the State of Maine if they forever kept it a wilderness area. It is a wilderness area, indeed. All dirt roads. Lots of Moose .......

We were traveling along one of the logging roads one afternoon when suddenly, right in front of us, this large cat-like animal with a long tail ran across the road in front of us. I got out of the car but it disappeared into the forest next to the road. I reported it to a park ranger as we were leaving the park. He said it probably was a Bobcat. I can still see it as if it just happened. My wife saw it. It was not a Bobcat. It was a Mountain Lion (Panther, Cougar). I know the difference. And, that's my story and I'm sticking to it !!! It happened so quick that I was unable to take a picture. And, to this day, although other sightings have been made since then, I know of no pictures.

And, these game cameras are great. If you have the habitat and location I would encourage you putting one up. You never know what is lurking around your property. We put one up on my son's property and he get's excellent deer photos. Some nice buck. We also have gotten both Red and Gray Fox. I only paid $89.00 for the last one and it takes good photos.

Well, need to rest up for this 20" to 30" snow storm heading our way. See you in the Spring ...........

Not to deviate from the Florida Panther but I wanted to share a recent photo from my son's game camera taken about 3:30 a.m. in the morning. You see things that you otherwise would never see.

Whitetail deer is the prime diet of the Florida Panther .........

Linthicum's tale reminds me of similar experience my dad had when he was living on his farm in a very rural area on the eastern shore of Virginia. As he told it: "Your Mom and I were driving home from Onancock the other day and I noticed some movement by the side of the road near Dahl Swamp. It was near dark so I slowed way down to see what it was. When I was almost stopped, something jumped right accross the hood of the car. all I saw was a big head and a long, long tail. Your ma said, "Julie, that looked like a great big cat!" I stopped the car but I didn't see anything in the direction it was headed; but I swear, I think we saw a panther. I spoke to the game warden about it and he asked me if maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. I just shut up because I didn't want to look like a stupid old fool."

Well, my dad was a well known outdoorsman and a keen observer of nature. He spent as much time as he could in the woods or on the water and he had lots of friends who did the same thing; they all thought it was possible if not likely that he had indeed seen a panther there by Dahl Swamp. If he were alive today he'd say the same thing linthicum did: "It's my story and I'm stickng to it!!"

Thanks, linthicum for telling your tale and for posting the photos from your son's game camera. Care to share what you think is going on?
RBB

The same was said by the F AND G here in Arkansas, Till a local Sherrif took a pic of one and put it in the paper.Don't know why anyone wants to keep them a secret.
Vickie

Our DNR now admits there are cougars here in MI. At first they said it was "escaped pets" (they couldn't say they were not around, after an auto accident) Well there must have been a few escaped pets, because there are mating pairs and young.

I agree they are a beautiful animal, but they are also very dangerous to humans, livestock, horses and pets. People should be warned when they are in the area and take precautions.

Animals like this are very seclusive. We have been living with bobcats for years and I have only seen one once. Not one bobcat on the trail camera.

Trail cameras are very very quiet. They use heat and motion to trip the sensor to take a picture. It takes almost 1 second to warm the camera up. Every coyote picture that I have gotten, shows the coyote looking directly at the camera. That tells you something.

Nice story, RBB. Thanks for sharing ....... I, too, spent much of my life outdoors, hunting and fishing. I know what I (we) saw. A Bobcat or Lynx has a short tail and is smaller in size.

My son occasionally puts corn out so I think the adult doe wasn't prepared to share anything that remained on the ground with the younger deer.

cpartschick, it doesn't surprise me that mountain lions have been seen in Michigan, on occasion. There was a time when Coyotes weren't seen in some states. Now, every state has coyotes. And, all animal species become disoriented on occasion, thus, rare sightings.

Here's another recent photo from the game camera ..... they are a lot of fun.

Great shots.I have got to get me one of those.

Linth, I have seen Does fighting in the woods. Sometimes it is for dominance, for food, to encourage button bucks to move on to other territory or other learning experiences. I spend a lot of time watching deer behavior and let me tell you, they will make you smile plenty.

The older does can get mean though. They do not like to share food and can draw blood and grunt like a buck.

I grew up in florida.I saw with my own eyes a florida panther in chiefland florida.My father in law owned 10 acers there had a trailor on it for probly 20 years and we would go up some weekends but not often.There were only a couple of hoses out there and most were vacation places so they were not occupied most of the time.On the back 1/2 of the property there was a junk pile with old lumber and other constrution stuff.I think it lived in that dump pile.anyway when he built his house on the property it sat empty most of the year and father in law dident go there much he worked out of town most of the year but while he was there for a few months he decided to grow some piglets one by one they all were killed and most were carried off..we moved in there after a while and we brought dogs and cats with us.one night my husband opened the front door to get some more boxes from the portch and he screamed and so did the panther! it was on the front porch sniffing around they scared each other it ran and he slammed the door.We never saw it again after that but it was right there we both saw it clearly.

Here is a site for those that might like to learn more about these amazing creatures who are struggling to survive.

http://www.floridapanthernet.org/

I saw one running after a small deer near San Augustine in 1975. My Dad and I watched it for 2 minutes. What a beautiful animal... The DNR is weird...

An interesting photo and an interesting thread. Mountain lions (as i know them) have been well documented as thriving in Florida. Sightings are acknowledged all up and down the east coast, and many areas are trying hard to get local fish and wildlife services to recognize that the Eastern Puma still exists and thrives in other locations.

Here is a map of the U.S. with confirmation of thriving populations in Florida.
http://www.easterncougarnet.org/bigpicture.html

Never give up on them! They are elusive by habit, and known to be the "ghost of the mountains and forests).

There has been sighting of them in N.B. Canada, as well.

We have mountain lions, or cougars as we call them, in our area also. Couple of years ago a neighbor was hiking with his dog and the dog took off after a young cat and treed it. Nobody got hurt:-)

i was scouting around, trying to find Pillita. she posts regularly on a forum that i frequent but she's been MIA for a month so i thought i'd do some checking. after reading this thread i can only imagine that she stayed true to her word and totally stopped posting on dg altogether. what a shame.

Burd_Fotos, i can't speak for pelletory, but i don't think the comment made refers to you in any way but rather to another poster on this forum. i think you may have assumed it to be meant for you but if you read this thread again, i think you'll see that you were not the one who ran Pillita off.

May I say that I was not accusing her or anyone involved of falsifying the photo. But lots of people get sent photos that have been photo shopped but believe them to represent real situations. We have had a few on the bird forum. They make the email rounds all quite innocently spreading false information. I live where there are deer and I know how easily they get spooked and are aware of their surroundings. So the panther that close and no sign of flight on the part of the deer just seems highly unlikely, just as Resin stated.

AND I am familiar with military rules and regulation. I just would hate for someone getting in trouble over a photo

I never questioned that the panthers exists.....I have relatives that live in Florida. I know they are there.

I think it silly for her to have stopped posting just beacause of this....

I didn't appreciate the public smackdown...but I am still here.

FWIW, I didn't see where she should have taken such offence to what you said. Photoshopping pictures and sending them out in e-mails is done a lot and for that deer to be so completely unaware is highly unlikely. Every military base has signs outside of it instructing you to NOT take pictures.

One thing you guys have to keep in mind is that not everyone is out to scam people. As for the photo as long as her sister and the co-worker got permission from the upper brass or commanders on the base for the picture then I do not see a problem and do not see why Pillita should have to explain to anyone about the pictures as she was only trying to make conversation and very well could have gotten the picture off of any website that post wildlife pictures. However, I do believe that Pillita could have been a better sport about nanny_56's posting. I know nanny_56 was only making an observation and the whole thing got blown out of proportion, but at the same time the observation could have been phrased better.

As for the deer in the picture, since the picture was taken by a security/trail type camera I will offer my opinion for what it's worth. The Florida Panther, as with any Cougar/Puma/Mountain Lion have the ability to sneak up on their pray without making so much as a sound. That's the way the hunt their prey, they are basically ambush predators. In the photo that started this thread the panther in the picture is clearly fixing to pounce and claim his/her "prize" in that photo, aka the deer.

If you look at the Panther's stance and how it's head is low and that it's not fully standing and is instead crouched down making sure to stay as much out of the deer's eye sight as possible. That is typical of a Cougar/Panther/Puma/Mountain Lion who is ready to take out their target. As for the authenticity of the photo it would look less credible if the picture had shown a panther who was posed like the one in this picture - http://www.wildflorida.com/articles/images/pantherMikeBarnes463.jpg or like this one - http://www.coryi.org/images/pantherstwoauth.jpg

As for Panther's in N. Florida FWC has a bad habit of trying to say there aren't any panthers in North Florida, but yet there have been many, many sightings to the contrary. Just like they claim there are no longer any Panthers in Central Florida. The last "confirmed" sighting of a Panther in Central Florida I believe was in the late 1970s, if I remember correctly. They also claim there aren't any Panthers in Brevard County near the Space Center but I know for a fact there are panthers here. My father has seen them, friends of mine have seen them, and many a construction worker as seen them here. Yet, the FWC claims and continues to say that there are not any Florida Panthers in Brevard County. Granted the sightings do not happen every day and are uncommon. The big cats are shy animals and prefer to stay away from places that have been taken over by us. As for a reason why FWC keeps denying the existence of the big cats in areas other than South Florida is more than likely because they have not been able to capture and track any of them. It's a lame excuse to say the least and from what I've seen they've all but given up on trying to trap and/or tag any Panthers that may be in North Florida. At the same time they "encourage" residents like myself to notify them if we happen to see or think we have seen a panther. Yet, when we call they try to discredit us and call us liars, go figure. I know what a bobcat looks like and they look nothing like a Florida Panther, Puma, Cougar, or Mountain Lion. It's like comparing the Florida Key Deer to a Whitetail Deer.

As for Jaguars, I cannot say I've heard of any in the state, let alone in North Florida and I've lived in Florida my whole life. Not saying it's not possible as it's very possible that someone owned a couple as a "pet", or 2 escaped from a wannabe zoo. Anything is possible and I do know that Jaguars have been known to travel as far north as Arizona (around the Phoenix area from the maps I've seen) and as far east as Southernmost Texas, but Jaguars have not been seen in those areas in a very very long time and are considered extinct in those areas. Having said that Arizona does have protected habitat for any Jaguars and other wildlife in their state - http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=p&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111373157402375035601.00045dde61df85ad126f9


Anyway, that's my 2 cents take it or leave it. I don't claim to be an expert but the photo doesn't look tampered with except to have the date/time stamp blurred which is more than likely a protocol taken upon the co-worker or the person in charge of the division heading the surveillance of the area in question who then gave the all clear for the co-worker to give the picture to Pillita's sister. As for authenticity that would be a simple matter to clear up for Pillita's sister taking into consideration that the picture was released through proper chain of command in which case I am surprised that Eglin AFB didn't share this picture with the FWC given FWC want of keeping track of all Florida Panther sightings especially one that is from a reliable source like this one would be considered.

There was a jaguar in Arizona last year, trapped by the state game and fish department, then euthanized.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/jaguar/index.html

That's a mule deer in the first post, so it's not really possible that it was taken in Florida.

Thanks for the information on the Jaguar in Arizona, I had thought I remembered something being said about one recently viewed in Arizona but didn't want to say anything until I had correct information about the when and where. :)

By the way, how can you tell that's a mule deer ? The only reason I ask is because both Whitetail and Mule deer look very similar from the backside plus the ears on that deer don't seem large enough to be a mule deer. Not saying you're wrong as I have been wrong before and I'm sure I'll be wrong again sooner rather than later. Either way, the picture itself doesn't seem faked as far the location and animals. Plus I do know that there have been other types of deer and other wildlife (aka game) imported to Florida for hunters, just like the big African game hunts available in the Midwest and/or Western states. The African game animals just like some of the deer species trapped and then transported to other states in the US for hunters to have that "rare" opportunity to hunt them. The different species of deer aren't as common a thing to be transported for hunting as we do have plenty of deer to hunt down here, but the African "Big Game" is supposedly or use to be big business for some of the outfitters. Therefore, it's still possible it could be northern Florida, however would be unlikely if that is truly a mule deer and not a whitetail.

just did a search and found this picture again, however this time it's on a different site - http://www.outdooroddities.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/game_cam_photo_of_big_cat_stalking_whitetail_deer.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.outdooroddities.com/2008/03/14/game-cam-captures-dramatic-moment-of-big-cat-stalking-a-deer/&usg=__XUFO6Awl9-cO7hViwsRjprYepqI=&h=432&w=576&sz=34&hl=en&start=107&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=Plpou82csdYrqM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=134&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwhitetail%2Bdeer%2BFlorida%26start%3D90%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26ndsp%3D18%26tbs%3Disch:1

According to one of the posters this pic is NOT from Pillita's sister and has been on several sites and has been placed as being taken from a game cam in Michigan, Ohio, Canada (Ontario), Montana, and now on this forum being told as being taken in Florida. No wonder Pillita got upset when someone question the authenticity of the picture..lol

This message was edited May 5, 2010 3:33 AM

This message was edited May 5, 2010 3:36 AM