CREW Flint Pen Strand is located on Bonita Beach Road. The trails are open from sunrise until sunset. Please bring plenty of water and you may need mosquito repellent for the hike. These caches have been placed with permission from the CREW Land & Water Trust and the South Florida Water Management District.
Florida Panther
All cougars in North American are classified as Puma concolor couguar. The Florida panther is a North American cougar that is found in South Florida. It lives in pinelands, tropical hardwood hammocks, and mixed freshwater swamp forests. Panthers are the only known breeding population of puma in the eastern United States. In 1967, the Department of the Interior listed the Florida Panther as an endangered species.
In 1982, the Florida panther was chosen as the Florida state animal.
Florida panthers are spotted at birth and typically have blue eyes. As the panther grows the spots fade, the coat becomes completely tan and the eyes turn yellow. The underbelly is white and it has black tips on its tail and ears. Florida panthers lack the ability to roar but they do make distinct sounds that include growls, hisses, and purrs. Male panthers can weigh about 100-160 lb. Females are somewhat smaller weighing about 64-100 lb. Male panthers average about 9% longer and 33% heavier than the female. The panthers live within a range that includes the Big Cypress National Preserve, Everglades National Park, the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, the Picayune Stand State Forest as well as rural areas of Collier, Lee, Hendry, Miami-Dade, and Monroe Counties in Florida.
The Florida Panther is a carnivore whose diet consists of both large animals such as deer, pigs and small alligators, as well as smaller prey such as raccoons, armadillos, rabbits, birds, and mice.
Panther kittens are born in dens created by their mother in dense scrub. Kittens will spend 6-8 weeks in those dens, dependent on their mother. At about 2 months old, the kittens leave the den and hunt in the company of the mother. They stay with the mother for the next 2 years at which time they begin to hunt and live on their own. Male panthers are not encountered frequently as males and females generally avoid each other outside of breeding.
In the U.S., pumas were eliminated east of the Great Plains nearly a century ago, except for the Florida Panthers. Prior to the loss of cats in the East, genes from the western pumas and Eastern cougars would naturally flow into the population around the boundaries of the species. There is a high level of genetic similarity found among all North American cougar populations. In 1995, due to the geographic isolation, Florida’s state animal was on the brink of extinction. It was estimated that no more than 30 panthers were left and several suffered from genetic defects caused by inbreeding. To increase genetic diversity, 8 female Texas cougars were brought in to breed with the remaining males. Five of the eight Texas cougars successfully bred with male panthers and produced healthy offspring. Today, there are about 230 panthers in the wild.
The Florida panther is one of the most endangered animals on earth. The biggest threat to the panther is habitat loss due to human development. The panthers currently occupy approximately 5% of their historic range. Other threats include vehicle collisions, as well as inbreeding, parasites and diseases.
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