On the prowl: Rare Florida panther sighting caught on video at Manatee County preserve

A rare sighting of a Florida panther was recently caught on video at a nature preserve in East Manatee County, local officials shared in a social media post on Tuesday.

A park ranger spotted the endangered cat as it headed into the foliage at Duette Preserve.

The panther was identified as a male.

“Male panthers are known to explore a broader territory, spanning over 200,000 acres, compared to females,” Manatee County Government said in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Duette’s 22,000 acres have become a frequent sighting location.”

The range of the Florida panther once stretched from Florida to Louisiana, as well as parts of Arkansas, Tennessee and South Carolina, according to the National Park Service.

Today, they only survive in Florida, where they have recovered from near extinction since the mid-90s. In 1995, conservation biologists gave the population an infusion of healthy genes with the release of eight female Texas pumas.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) estimates that 120 to 230 adult panthers now exist in the wild.

“Young males in search of their own territories have been documented in other parts of Florida but most of the breeding population remains restricted to South Florida, below the Caloosahatchee River,” the FWC’s Florida panther info page says. “Conversely, it is not uncommon to find male panthers throughout the Florida peninsula, and one male ventured into western Georgia where he was shot and killed in 2008.”

The panthers are frequently hit by cars as they travel between fragmented sections of habitat.

Programs including the Florida Wildlife Corridor are aiming to create safe passage for the animals to move around as they need.

Parts of East Manatee County are already part of the corridor, while others are considered “opportunity areas” for its expansion.

Other rare and threatened species found in East Manatee County, including at Duette Preserve, include the Florida scrub jay and the Eastern indigo snake.

This story was originally published January 17, 2024 at 5:50 AM.