Florida panthers are thought of as mainly nocturnal animals, although these videos from Tom Mortenson show they will move during the day as well.
Good news for Florida panthers: they're not overly susceptible to a disease that can cripple and kill deer, the panther's primary prey.
Researchers at the University of Central Florida released a paper in mid-November that looks at the Florida panther and whether past genetic introductions have made the big cat more vulnerable to chronic wasting disease, or CWD.
Chronic wasting disease, also called zombie deer disease, is a transmissible form of spongiform encephalopathy, for which there is no cure or vaccine. It was first documented in Florida in 2023.
CWD impacts deer, elk and moose, mostly, and has been found in Europe, South Korea and the United States.
The disease causes infected animals to drool and stare off into the distance before dying.
The UCF researchers were among the biologists concerned that the disease may spread to the state animal since deer is the panther's primary food source.
Three decades of recovery
"About 30 years ago, there were only 20 or 30 Florida panthers left, and they [became] really inbred," said co-author and UCF professor Bob Fitak. "So, they brought in panthers from Texas to help supplement this population, to help restore or recover the population. It's been a really successful program. We try to understand why that was successful and what we need to watch out for in the future. We call this genetic rescue or genetic restoration."
The Florida panther population was suffering even during the mid-1900s, when a series of South American cats were released into the Everglades by establishments like the Everglades Wonder Gardens on Old 41 Road in Bonita Springs.
By the 1990s the state had developed a plan to grow the population's genetics through the introduction of seven big cats from Texas.
The Texas cougar females that were released produced several litters, and the population has since rebounded to 120 to 230 panthers, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC.
Panther genetics a historic concern
Elizabeth Sharkey was the main author of the paper. She's a graduate student at the University of Washington in St. Louis, MO.
"It's really important that we were checking up on the genetics of the panthers in Florida to see if they were any more susceptible to the disease," Sharkey said. "We were concerned with the Florida panthers because it has been a fragile population in the past, and there was the introduction of the Texas cats and the South American pumas."
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention and other health organizations don't yet know whether animals that eat infected deer meat can become sick.
"And it's not known if people can even get infected with CWD," a CDC website reads. "However, CWD is related to another prion disease in animals that does infect people. So, it is considered a theoretical risk to people. Some studies in monkeys suggest they can get CWD by eating meat or brain tissues of infected deer or elk. These studies raise concerns CWD may also pose a risk to people."