Male dispersing Cougars have been wandering North of the St. Johns River and Caloosahatchee River over the past 5 years.............Is there enough viable habitat in Central and Northern Florida for female cats to also make the trek North?

Panther tracks found along St. Johns River in Florida

By DINAH VOYLES PULVER

This track of an endangered Florida panther was found March 2 in eastern Seminole County. Another sighting of an endangered Florida panther has been documented in the St. Johns River region, just across the river from Volusia County in the new Charles H. Bronson State Forest and Wildlife Management Area in Seminole County.

A grand opening for the new forest, which is in eastern portions of Seminole and Orange counties, is still weeks away, but state biologists working on the property documented the early and unusual -- visitor last week.
Panther sightings are unusual in central and north Florida. Documented sightings, meaning photo evidence is recorded, are even more rare. But through the years, sightings along the St. Johns River have persisted. In this case, biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission discovered the set of panther tracks last week while installing a fence line. The biologists, Dave Turner and Bryan Ames, took photos and made plaster casts of the prints and sent them to one of the state's panther experts, the commission's Darrell Land. "I was just very pleased that they took a picture of the panther track and that they sent it to me," Land said. Land said he believes it's the first documented sighting in the region since park rangers at Tomoka State Park saw a panther and found tracks in March 2008.
Commission officials estimate the population of panthers in Florida at between 100 and 160. They documented the births of at least 29 new panther kittens last year, more than double the number born to monitored females in the previous year. They do not know how many kittens were born to unmonitored females.
Panthers once roamed statewide, but dwindled at one point to only about 25, found only in Southwest Florida. The animals rebounded after a project to cross-breed the cats with eight female pumas from Texas. The cats continue to face significant problems, officials say, including collisions with vehicles and habitat loss. The commission reported 23 panther deaths last year, including 16 that were killed on roads. Another six were killed by another panther.
Fewer than 10 panthers are believed to roam north of the Caloosahatchee River, which runs southwest from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico, Land said. "If there were 20 to 30 we would be getting yearly road kills up there," Land said. "That just doesn't happen." So far, only male panthers have roamed north of the Caloosahatchee. While a male may range up to 100 square miles in a year, females stick closer to their birth locations, roaming only 40 to 50 square miles in a year. While scientists say the chances of finding a female panther here are virtually nil, male panthers have been found along the St. Johns River basin occasionally through the years. A hunter found a dead panther on Miami Corp. property in Crane Swamp in December 1987 and fresh evidence of a second panther. In June 2005, a panther was killed on Interstate 95 in Flagler County.
A grand opening for the state forest, off Phillips Road in Chuluota in Orange County, is planned for 1 to 4 p.m. March 26, said forester Stephen Stipkovits, with the Florida Division of Forestry. About a third of the forest will be opened to the public for hiking, bicycling and horseback riding. Stipkovits said marsh restoration is taking place along the St. Johns on the remaining two-thirds of the forest.