The Florida Panther is one of 30 subspecies of panther and is native to Florida. They differ from other species, one of the most unusual ways are the webbing of the feet. This helps the animal to maintain stability on sand as well as marshy wetlands. The demise of this animal as with many others is the loss of habitat, over-hunting and inbreeding.

The panther pictured to the right is named Cedar and was born in captivity as a pet and declawed, she will never be released into the wild. When I photographed Cedar she was 2 years old and living in a wildlife rehabilitation center.The Florida Panther when in the wild consume such foods as deer, hog, armadillo, small alligators and fowl. A panther will usually kill its prey with a bite to the throat or back of the neck. In 1967 the Department of the Interior listed the Florida Panther as an endangered species, and in 1982 the panther was adopted as Florida's state mammal. Over the last 100 years mostly due to urban sprawl and the extinction of the Eastern Cougar the Florida Panther has been isolated from the rest of the panther subspecies.

This has depleted the gene pool for the Florida Panther. At one time the panther's boundaries overlapped and at those boundaries the panthers met and mated. The breeding of similar but distinct subgroups of the species made the panther a hardy predator. Now that the panther is isolated, habitats depleted and the gene pool minimized the Florida Panther is having a rough time making a comeback.

This is Dakota a 7 - year - old male housed at the same rehabilitation center as Cedar, no he is not dead he's napping. Panthers are primarily nocturnal animals. Panthers are most active from dusk to dawn and rest during the days. Covering up to 20 miles in a single night the panther often uses a zigzagging pattern to cover territory. Large cats like the panther can swim across large bodies of water such as cypress swamps and man-made canals.

Panthers prefer to sneak up on prey and spring an attack and can reach speeds up to 35mph, but can only maintain this speed for a few hundred yards at the most. Males weigh as much as 100-160lb and measure 7-8 feet from the nose to the tip of the tail. Males also maintain up to a 250 square mile territory. Females weigh about 60-100lb and are about six- foot in length. Both sexes can live to the ages of between 12-15 years in the wild. Panthers do not mate for life and are pretty much solitary animals.