[daedalo]

For you nature enthusiasts out there I had the experience of a lifetime this past weekend. We like to find and explore remote rural Florida. We were on a logging road that runs north of Jasper Florida into Georgia. When we had just crossed into Georgia (I was running my GPS off my laptop in the car) we came around a bend in the road and up about 100 yards ahead we saw a big deep reddish brown cat about 42" from nose to rump with a long tail headed toward us. When he sighted us he ran across the road and sprang for the bush and was gone. A few years ago the state attempted to introduce the Florida panther into the nearby Pinhook swamp, but abandoned the program and withdrew some of the animals. Apparently the program was more successful than they thought. Hopefully they should do well on the deer and wild turkeys. We photographed the numerous clear paw prints and forwarded them to interested parties. Panthers cover ground-about 20 miles per day and can range over 200 square miles. Hopefully the panther will thrive in this area which should remain undeveloped for a long time.

[Mountain Man]

Cool sighting It probably was out of the western or Texas stock that has been introduced years ago there are only 40 to 50 true Fl panthers there are a lot more cats here than people think. Here is a site with a lot of Panther info
http://www.fws.gov/verobeach/WhatsNew/Press_release/Panther%20Recovery%20Plan%202006_01_31%20_%20no%20 figures.pdf (broken link)