By David Raterman

Yes, one might be right next to you next time you’re out hiking or mountain biking in South Florida. A 140-pound carnivore that measures seven feet long from nose to tail.

Some of the best trails cut through panther habitat: Big Cypress National Preserve, Everglades National Park, Picayune Strand State Forest, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and other wilds. According to researchers and residents, panthers even roam into the urban fringe of Miami-Dade, Broward (Fort Lauderdale), Palm Beach and Collier (Naples) counties.

Fortunately the cats are usually skittish of humans so on your next eco-trip you probably won’t see one. Probably.

• • •

Recently I drove on Alligator Alley (I-75) west from Fort Lauderdale then south on SR 29, and the closer I got to Big Cypress National Preserve’s headquarters the more warnings I saw: “Panther Crossing Next 7 Miles.” “Panther Crossing Next 5 Miles.” Etcetera. And chain-link fences paralleled both sides of the road to keep panthers and other critters from getting hit. So far in 2007, 14 panthers had been killed by cars. In all of 2006 11 were killed by cars. With 93 known adult panthers, every death is a blow to the species’ survival.

Deborah Jansen, a wildlife biologist at Big Cypress, and Lisa Andrews, an outreach education specialist, greeted me at the headquarters. In an e-mail, Jansen had written that they would “share some information we provide to visitors on recreating in panther habitat and what hiking trails and conditions we have at Big Cypress.”

We sat down in an office filled with all sorts of wild animal curios. “We’ve counted 93 panthers, not including kittens,” Jansen said. “One-third have been collared (with radio-tracking devices). We get up on the fixed-wing three days a week to monitor them.”

If a female stays in an area more than one week then she’s denning, Jansen said, usually among thick saw palmettos.

The women then explained how housing developments, speeding vehicles, disease, alligators and larger male panthers contribute to their deaths. And how panthers had been shot by people who were either scared or didn’t want their domestic animals to be hunted.

“In 1970 they were thought to be extinct,” Andrews said. “Then in 1972 a female was discovered.”

“We had fewer than 30 panthers in 1980,” added Jansen. “They were very inbred, ageing, had poor immune systems, there were reproductive issues. So we brought in eight females from Texas to improve their genetic diversity.”

The Florida panther is related to mountain lions from the western United States. Panthers used to live throughout the Southeast but now live mostly in southern Florida.

“And with the numbers increasing, they are pushing out their territory,” Jansen said. “A male needs 200 square miles and a female needs 100.”

With panthers pushing out their territory, that means more encounters with people.

“We need 240 (panthers) to be self-sustaining,” Jansen added. “Our goal is to establish two other areas for the panthers, in Arkansas and north Florida, but public sentiment is against predators.”

She continued. “The challenge is how to deal with depredations and how people can recreate in panther habitat.”

By depredations Jansen means people’s dogs, cats, goats and other animals being hunted. And people being scared, but not hunted.

“I’ve studied this animal a long time and they don’t look at people as food,” she said. “There’s always that possibility, especially with small kids. But panthers are usually shy and elusive. Encounters are rare.”

In the West, mountain lions do occasionally dine on humans. But according to a St. Petersburg Times article from April, in southern Florida “Only one attack is on the books. But that’s officially. Unofficially, panthers forever have been sneaking up on babies in bassinets or dropping from tree limbs onto the backs of unwary settlers.” The article then quotes an 1897 New York Times report in which a panther viciously attacked a man.

But panthers typically prey on whitetail deer and wild hogs, and sometimes rabbits and other small mammals.

• • •

After an hour in the office Jansen and Andrews drove me a short distance to Turner River Road, which is dirt, and we continued north. Several minutes later we stopped and began hiking along an old logging trail called Windmill Tram.

We were in prime panther territory.

At first we walked on the dry land of a mixed hardwood forest then we waded through swamp water that first reached our ankles and then our waists. In addition to describing flora and fauna—a tree frog, various fish that swam near our legs, all sorts of birds—Jansen and Andrews were looking for panther signs: paw tracks, scratches on trees, deer bones…

After half an hour they squatted and began pointing to the ground. “We found panther tracks!” Andrews shouted.

I squatted next to them and marveled at how close we were to a carnivore that was approximately the size of these women. It was an amazing break from my normal work behind a computer.

After a short discussion the two women made an educated guess: the tracks were probably from a mother.

We followed the tracks for about 10 feet and then noticed that through some of them went an undulating line.

An alligator had slithered through these panther tracks.

We were walking on a trail on which a panther and an alligator had recently walked, an hour from Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

In the middle of the swamp, my lower body soaked from swamp water, I was definitely recreating in panther habitat.