Efforts Launched to Save Florida Panther and Companion Rare Louse

The Florida panther is making its last stand in the Big Cypress National Preserve, with the help of lower speed limits, radio collars and a $250,000-a-year conservation program.

That’s good news for the few remaining panthers and for Mallophaga felicola --a louse found only on the endangered Florida cat.

“There may never be a Save the Louse Foundation, but it’s a fact that one of the rarest creatures on this planet is a breed of louse,” Henry Cabbage of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission said.

The existence of the louse is just one bit of data that the commission has turned up as it has got acquainted with the tawny, crook-tailed panthers, known elsewhere as cougars.

The big cat once roamed throughout Florida, but the state’s booming development has squeezed it into the Everglades south of Lake Okeechobee, mainly in the Big Cypress National Preserve.

“At one time . . . we actually documented 26,” said Chris Belden, a biologist and panther expert with the state commission in Gainesville.

John Roboski, head of the South Florida Panther Project, said that there might be as many as 50. “The main point is that there are just not many of them left.”

As important as panther numbers, he added, is whether the habitat can be saved.

Little Private Aid

One discouraging note is the response to a fund set up in 1983 to receive private contributions for panther research. By early 1985, those gifts amounted to $120, officials said.

“We’re spending about $250,000 a year for panther recovery and have been for the last two years,” said Tom Logan, bureau chief of wildlife research with the commission. “We spent $90,000 to $100,000 a year before that.”

Radio collars put on some cats have shown that the panthers are constantly on the move, with males roaming areas as large as 150 square miles and females 75 square miles, Belden said.

“We found out that they’ll go in the Everglades in the saw-grass environment, which is a place we didn’t think they would use,” Roboski said. “The high water didn’t bother them.”

In addition, Roboski and his team study white-tailed deer and wild hogs, the panther’s preferred prey.

4 Panthers Collared

He has collared four panthers, working with tranquilizer darts, a pack of hounds and a professional tracker who has 30 years’ experience with cougars.

Although the panther is a predator, no attack by a panther on a human has been documented, unless you count a brush between researcher Jayde Roof and a pair of mating panthers, Belden said.

“While they were approaching one cat, the other one decided to dart down out of the tree and more or less mistook Roof for part of the tree,” Cabbage said.

At about 100 pounds, a Florida panther has clout behinds its claws. However, Roof suffered only minor scratches. Both panthers were collared.

Other Animals Studied

“Along with the collaring effort, we’re studying the deer herds, public use of that area, the panther’s health and the health of animals similar to the panther,” Roboski said. “Bobcats, raccoons and otters may carry diseases that hurt the panther. For example, feline distemper may be carried by the otter.”

Florida has made it a felony to kill a panther. Speed limits on State Road 84--”Alligator Alley”--and U.S. 41 were reduced to 45 m.p.h. from 55 m.p.h. between dusk and dawn, when the panthers prowl. Of 17 panthers known killed since 1972, eight were killed by cars.

Research on the panther, started by the commission in 1981, has only scratched the surface, Roboski said.

“We’re still finding out questions that we need to answer rather than hard answers to things,” he said. “In the realm of scientific studies, four years is nothing with something as unique as this.”

Population Growth

Researchers feel certain that the Florida panther will never achieve a population that would get it off the endangered list.

For one thing, panthers do not breed as rapidly as their friend the panther louse, which tears through a lifetime in four weeks.

The gestation period for panthers is 92 days, and cubs will stay with their mother for about two years before venturing on their own, Roboski said.