sighting of Ontario cougar/panther

I grew up in Dade County, and used to hunt the edge of the Glades with my dad - this was back in the 1950s. We hunted the sawgrass swamps on the dirt road to Lake Chikika (sp?). The Glades were a hauntingly beautiful and somewhat scary place for a very young hunter. I remember almost stepping on a coiled rattler one time when we were hunting rails and gallinules.

In my 20s I returned to my native Canada, where decades later I finally saw my first and only panther/cougar about 12 years ago. It was a sleek shadowy beauty crossing Highway #7 (just east of Marmora, between Peterborough and Ottawa) at dusk. I had to stop the car for a bit to absorb the experience. When my passenger and I told our friends about the sighting, most scoffed that we'd seen a bobcat. Some bobcat - it was about 6 feet long from nose to tail tip and looked to weigh about 70 pounds. Another night I was doing a long rural walk when I spotted some deer browsing a field. I shined my flashlight at the deer, and accidentally spooked a cougar which had been stalking the fawns. It led out the loudest, bloodiest scream I've could ever have imagined. Apologies to the hunter.

Please save the Glades and the beautiful south Florida habitat. I just finished reading "Scat", Carl Hiaasen's teen oriented novel about Florida panthers. Highly recommended for all ages and lovers of south Florida's wildlife.

Those  hunting trips  to the Everglades over half a century ago inspired one of my first childhood poems. I remember the first 4 lines:

a land of life and sudden death
softly caressed by God's pure breath
where in the murky water lies
a sunken log with hate filled eyes

Here's the website I posted this on:

Petition update

Story of FP 250 highlights threats to Florida Panthers!

South Florida Wildlands Association

Jan 7, 2019 — 

Posted this story on our Facebook page last week.  Sharing it here to highlight another way Florida Panthers are impacted by shrinking habitat:

Sad story of FP 250. Struck by a car in June of 2017, this male panther suffered three broken legs and other injuries. He was rushed to an animal ER in Naples and received 6 hours of successful surgery. After months of rehabilitation in northern Florida, the now-recovered panther was released into the Dinner Island Wildlife Management Area in Hendry County in February of 2018. Nine months later, in November 2018, he met his death in a fight with another panther in rural Collier County - not far from where he was struck by the vehicle.

Much can be said about this story. Panthers are territorial animals - and with the exception of mating or a female raising kittens, they are also solitary animals. "Intraspecific aggression" - or panther on panther fights - is the second leading caused of death for panthers after roadkill. The small piece of southwest Florida which is the core habitat for this species is now a full house - with all viable panther habitat fully occupied. When we consider the 45,000 acres of development and hundreds of miles of new and widened roads that Collier County landowners and the U.S, Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) want to bring to this special area, we need to add displacement of existing panther home ranges to the destruction and fragmentation of habitat which is coming. Those lands that are slated be be paved over for new subdivisions are NOT vacant.