Current:Home > FinanceMore endangered Florida panthers have died in 2024 so far than all of last year: "These roadkills are heartbreaking"-InfoLens
More endangered Florida panthers have died in 2024 so far than all of last year: "These roadkills are heartbreaking"
View Date:2024-12-23 14:43:18
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! (7)
Related
- Driver dies after crashing on hurricane-damaged highway in North Carolina
- Leap day deals 2024: Get discounts and free food from Wendy's, Chipotle, Krispy Kreme, more
- 2024 NFL draft: Ohio State's Marvin Harrison Jr. leads top 5 wide receiver prospect list
- 2024 third base rankings: Jose Ramirez, Austin Riley first off the board
- Why Amanda Seyfried Traded Living in Hollywood for Life on a Farm in Upstate New York
- Avalanche kills 4 skiers in Kyrgyzstan visiting from Czech Republic and Slovakia
- Israel accused of deliberately starving Gaza civilians as war plans leave Netanyahu increasingly isolated
- No, Wendy's says it isn't planning to introduce surge pricing
- See Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani's Winning NFL Outing With Kids Zuma and Apollo
- Texas wildfire becomes second-largest in state history, burning 500,000 acres
Ranking
- California teen pleads guilty in Florida to making hundreds of ‘swatting’ calls across the US
- After 10 years of development, Apple abruptly cancels its electric car project
- Community searching for answers after nonbinary teen Nex Benedict dies following fight at school
- She wanted a space for her son, who has autism, to explore nature. So, she created a whimsical fairy forest.
- Deommodore Lenoir contract details: 49ers ink DB to $92 million extension
- Avalanche kills 4 skiers in Kyrgyzstan visiting from Czech Republic and Slovakia
- AI chatbots are serving up wildly inaccurate election information, new study says
- A pregnant Amish woman is killed in her rural Pennsylvania home, and police have no suspects
Recommendation
-
As Northeast wildfires keep igniting, is there a drought-buster in sight?
-
Chiefs' Mecole Hardman rips Jets while reflecting on turbulent tenure: 'No standard there'
-
Max Strus hits game-winning buzzer-beater in Cleveland Cavaliers' win vs. Dallas Mavericks
-
Family Dollar's rat-infested warehouse, damaged products, lead to $41.6 million fine
-
Bev Priestman fired as Canada women’s soccer coach after review of Olympic drone scandal
-
NYC Mayor Eric Adams calls for expanded cooperation between police and immigration authorities
-
Drew Barrymore's 1995 Playboy cover comes back to haunt her with daughter's sass
-
Supreme Court to hear challenge to bump stock ban in high court’s latest gun case