The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Cars are decimating the Florida panther. A new film shows what can save it.

(Video: Grizzly Creek Films)
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The chase started with the flicker of a tail that Carlton Ward Jr. caught on camera on assignment in southwestern Florida.

“It was in this ancient swamp that’s flooded nine months out of the year that felt like you were in the Amazon, but it’s 25 miles from Naples,” said the wildlife photographer and filmmaker. “And we had strap ferns and bromeliads, and deep, dark peat soils and the cypress trees. It’s just this magical world.”

He decided it was part of a larger story he wanted to tell.

The tail, it turned out, belonged to the elusive Florida panther, which is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. After tracking it for years, Ward, along with a team of conservationists, filmmakers and biologists, produced “Path of the Panther,” a documentary that chronicles the fight to protect the endangered big cat from encroaching development.

Babs, a female panther, is the star of the show. But at its core, the film is about the Florida Wildlife Corridor, an 18 million acre area of protected land that is crucial to the survival of the panther and other Florida animals threatened by development.

Wildlife corridors, or pathways that allow wildlife to move through areas without having to cross highways or navigate development, are, according to Ward, essential to protect species that roam large areas of land.

(Video: Grizzly Creek Films)

A habitat criss-crossed by highways

Since the 1970s, when the Florida panther was first listed, its population has rebounded from under 30 to over 200 in the wild. Still, it remains under threat because of intense development, with rows of cookie-cutter houses shaving acres off of its habitat.

As the area has grown, so has traffic. One of the main reasons for the panther’s near-extinction is the proliferation of highways that cut through Florida. Being hit by cars is the No. 1 cause of death for the species.

“People know about the panther, but they don’t really connect the panther to the land it needs to survive,” Ward said.

“An individual male panther has a home range of 200 square miles. So that’s twice the size of Orlando and four times the size of Miami,” he added.

As of the latest count this year, there are only about 200 Florida panthers left in the wild.

(Video: Grizzly Creek Films)

Carving a path for the panther

Ward was part of the group that came up with the idea of patching together a protected pathway to give wildlife space to roam. They founded a nonprofit group to support the project in 2010.

The corridor’s advocates ramped up their efforts in 2020, when the Florida Department of Transportation proposed a toll road that would cut through the panther’s territory from central Florida to just north of the Everglades. Environmentalists across the state, including the Nature Conservancy, strongly opposed the road.

For Ward and his fellow filmmakers, the panther, which is Florida’s state animal, was the perfect ambassador for the corridor. “It really matters how information is presented,” said Tori Linder, a producer on the film.

The team decided to focus not on the detrimental effects of the toll road, but on the protection the Florida Wildlife Corridor can provide.

“A lot of people were speaking out against the road,” Ward, Jr. said. “That particular solution had a voice. The wildlife corridor didn’t have enough of a voice.”

In 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act with unanimous support, a move that would protect nearly 10 million acres of land.

“This world has so many barriers, dead ends and unnatural cul-de-sacs in nature that are cut off from all the other pieces of nature. It feels like there may be a way to rebuild connectivity through our natural systems and I've been obsessed with that idea for 20 years,” Eric Bendick, the film’s director said.

Survival for the Florida panther depends on breaking down those barriers and clearing the way for them to roam freely once again.

(Video: Grizzly Creek Films)

Path of the Panther premieres on the National Geographic channel on April 22, Hulu on April 23, and Disney Plus on April 28.

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