Current:Home > InvestMore endangered Florida panthers have died in 2024 so far than all of last year: "These roadkills are heartbreaking" -GlobalInvest
More endangered Florida panthers have died in 2024 so far than all of last year: "These roadkills are heartbreaking"
Burley Garcia View
Date:2025-04-08 13:09:32
The 2024 calendar is not even at its halfway point but more endangered Florida panthers have died this year than in all of 2023, according to state statistics.
Of the 14 deaths in 2024, 11 involved vehicles and another was killed by a train. Two other deaths were of an "unknown" cause, according to statistics from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Experts say only between 120 and 230 adult panthers are left in Florida. Most live in South Florida, according to Elise Bennett, the Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Factors like growing human populations and higher vehicular traffic in the panthers' limited habitat are part of the reason why so many of the endangered cats are killed, Bennett said.
"The reason it's so dangerous is because we have a growing human population and the infrastructure, the roads, the buildings, the higher traffic and higher speeds ... all of that is happening right in the heart of the last remaining occupied habitat for the Florida panther," Bennett said. "They've been kind of cornered into this little area of Southwest Florida, and that's where we see the majority of these roadkills."
While more panthers have died this year than last, Bennett said that it's still low for panther deaths. In 2021 and 2022, 27 panthers died each year. In 2020, 22 panthers died. Bennett said it's not clear why panther deaths were so low in 2023.
"It doesn't change the fact that these roadkills are heartbreaking and we really need to be doing everything we can to have less of them if we want our one remaining panther population to exist and eventually recover to a point where it doesn't need to be protected anymore," Bennett said.
Conservation efforts to protect the panther species are ongoing. Bennett said that for the species to no longer be considered endangered, there would need to be three distinct populations of 240 adult panthers each, something she said is a "long way to go." In an ideal world, panthers would be able to roam freely between all three populations, traversing the state to former habitats like north Florida and Georgia without significant risk. That's the goal of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, an initiative that "sets out to identify the most important places that we need to protect so that panthers actually have a way to move north and go back into their former range," said Bennett.
Bennett said that conservationists are hoping to find a happy medium between continued human population growth and the needs of the endangered panthers.
"It's really about making sure that when we have new development - we need places for people to live - that we do it in a compact way, that we're not sprawling out into important panther habitat, and that every step we're making isn't foreclosing the opportunity for the panthers to get back out into habitat that could help support them," she said.
- In:
- Endangered Species
- Florida
Kerry Breen is a News Editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
TwitterveryGood! (3)
Related
- NHL in ASL returns, delivering American Sign Language analysis for Deaf community at Winter Classic
- Gen Z is the most pro union generation alive. Will they organize to reflect that?
- The EPA proposes tighter limits on toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants
- A regional sports network bankruptcy means some baseball fans may not see games on TV
- 'Most Whopper
- Boohoo Drops a Size-Inclusive Barbie Collab—and Yes, It's Fantastic
- The dating game that does your taxes
- New Mexico Could Be the Fourth State to Add a Green Amendment to Its Constitution, But Time Is Short
- B.A. Parker is learning the banjo
- Michael Cohen settles lawsuit against Trump Organization
Ranking
- All That You Wanted to Know About She’s All That
- Chicago Mayor Slow to Act on Promises to Build Green Economy by Repurposing Polluted Industrial Sites
- Shawn Johnson East Shares the Kitchen Hacks That Make Her Life Easier as a Busy Mom
- Kathy Griffin Fiercely Defends Madonna From Ageism and Misogyny Amid Hospitalization
- Dick Vitale announces he is cancer free: 'Santa Claus came early'
- Inside Clean Energy: In a Week of Sobering Climate News, Let’s Talk About Batteries
- The Fate of Protected Wetlands Are At Stake in the Supreme Court’s First Case of the Term
- Phoenix residents ration air conditioning, fearing future electric bills, as record-breaking heat turns homes into air fryers
Recommendation
Trump wants to turn the clock on daylight saving time
Warming Trends: The Climate Atlas of Canada Maps ‘the Harshities of Life,’ Plus Christians Embracing Climate Change and a New Podcast Called ‘Hot Farm’
Gloomy global growth, Tupperware troubles, RIP HBO Max
Full transcript of Face the Nation, July 23, 2023
Retirement planning: 3 crucial moves everyone should make before 2025
About 1 in 10 young adults are vaping regularly, CDC report finds
Montana becomes 1st state to approve a full ban of TikTok
Gloomy global growth, Tupperware troubles, RIP HBO Max