Early on a Saturday morning in March, Jo Gryniewicz, a photographer visiting from Pennsylvania, went out to the boardwalk. Very shortly thereafter, she had a life-changing expertise when she noticed and photographed a Florida panther about 30 toes away. Along with her lengthy lens already in her fingers, she was capable of snap just a few fast photographs earlier than it took off. She was type sufficient to share her uncropped photograph with us.
Florida panthers are very timid, however encounters like this have taken place on the Sanctuary just a few instances in current many years.
Florida panthers are the one remaining cougars within the jap United States, with about 200 adults within the wild as of 2025. As high predators, panthers are territorial and require 150 to 200 sq. miles for one male and several other females.
Urbanization and habitat fragmentation throughout South Florida regularly confine panthers to smaller areas, leading to territorial fights between them, a rise in automobile strikes, and extra human-panther interactions on the whole.
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary protects 13,000 acres of the land that these cats want for survival, however their habitat is shrinking. Defending them additionally means defending our watersheds and human communities.
