Dead cat walking: As Florida panther habitat shrinks, extinction fears rise

.....

In short, the Florida panther is a dead cat walking.

"It's going to be the best-documented extinction ever, unless they do something," said Laurie Wilkins of the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Over the past 15 years, the federal agency in charge of protecting the habitat where panthers roam, hunt and mate has given developers, miners and farmers permission to destroy more than 40,000 acres of it.

The panther is Florida's state animal. It's a license-plate icon, the namesake of Miami's pro hockey team and the mascot of schools around the state. Yet it hasn't received the protection promised by the Endangered Species Act. Here's why:

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which spends more than $1.2 million a year on panther protection, has not blocked a single development that altered panther habitat. Former agency employees say every time they tried, "we were told that, politically, it would be a disaster," said Linda Ferrell, who retired from the agency in 2005.

• To bolster the case for allowing development, agency officials have used flawed science. They even manipulated figures to make it appear at one point as if there were surplus panthers.

• Agency officials say they have required developers and others to make up for destroying the habitat. But their own figures show those efforts have fallen short, and now they concede there's not enough habitat left to let the population ever leave the endangered list.

.....

Most of the projects the Fish and Wildlife Service has approved since 1995 are in Collier County. The largest is the new town of Ave Maria, which in 2005 was given permission to destroy 5,027 acres of habitat that had been 9 miles from the nearest suburb.

Souza, the Fish and Wildlife Service supervisor, said his agency has permitted development only around the edges of panther habitat. But state panther expert and biologist Dave Onorato said Ave Maria "would be considered in the middle of the habitat. It's not just the footprint going in, but also what ensues: roads, stores, houses."

.....

.....

The project with the largest impact is Lee County's $438 million expansion of the Southwest Florida International Airport near Fort Myers. The construction — a new taxiway, a 28-gate terminal, support facilities, 10 miles of internal roads and a 4-mile highway extension —- subtracted 8,000 acres from panther habitat.

The agency said losing those 8,000 acres would further fragment the remaining habitat and make it more likely panthers would be killed by cars. Yet its official opinion said the airport expansion was "not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the panther."

The biologist who wrote that said later that he didn't believe it, but feared he would lose his job.

.....

Linda Ferrell, (....) said the Florida biologists were pressured by top agency officials to always say yes to development.

.....

The human encroachment into panther territory isn't over. Developers are planning another new town, named Big Cypress. It would put 9,000 homes on 3,600 acres abutting the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. Panthers wearing radio collars have crossed that land 20 times.

The question all Floridians should ask, said the refuge's Richardson, is whether they want to make the sacrifices necessary to save the panther. If they don't, everyone will bear the responsibility for allowing the state animal to fade into oblivion.

"And what would be the next animal that we'll choose to not save?" Richardson asked. "And at what point in time does our choice affect ourselves?"

It seemed like a good plan: gather the top experts on the Florida panther. Put them with experts on mapping and computer models. Ask them to figure out how much land panthers really need.

Then the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would use the results as the ultimate panther plan, a guide to regulating development in panther habitat and saving the species from extinction.

The panel met for two tumultuous years. The experts argued, but finally, in 2002, produced a 191-page report — complete with maps — that showed what the federal agency needed to do to help panthers. The report included 25 pages of detailed recommendations on how to preserve the habitat.

"All these people who don't agree on some things agreed on what should be done," said University of Florida scientist Tom Hoctor, who served on the panel.

More than seven years later, the Fish and Wildlife Service has yet to publish that report. Instead of following the recommendations, the agency approved building new suburbs, malls and mines where panthers lived.

"It's frustrating to see this habitat is going to be broken up by homes now," said panelist Deborah Jansen, a panther expert with the National Park Service.

The report's findings have become the basis of a lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service, which is pursuing an alternate plan put together by consultants for developers.

"It's a pretty sordid story," Hoctor said. The saga is "a great case study in the mixture of science, politics and the Endangered Species Act."

Dawn Jennings, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, assembled the panel of experts in 1999.

"This region is losing an incredible amount of habitat to development," she wrote to a colleague, "and we need to know how much habitat loss the panther can sustain before the population is no longer viable."

.....