Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Panther wins against cabbage palm

If you like your conservation efforts served with a nice dusting of irony, consider what’s happening at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge near Naples, Fla. Workers there are about to start tearing down dense stands of the official Florida state tree, the cabbage palm, in order to benefit the official state animal, the endangered Florida panther, that lives in the refuge. Refuge wildlife biologist Larry Richardson acknowledges that he hears from people who are confused about the project. But the fact is that the cabbage palms have grown so thick in places on the refuge that they are crowding out other plants that are necessary food for deer. That means the deer move on to find better feeding areas, and the panthers are deprived of the deer they need to prey on. So the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, hired Wildland Services, Inc., of Moore Haven, Fla., to cut down the invasive cabbage palms on more than 1,700 acres inside the refuge. The $171,000 contract is being funded by money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, popularly known as stimulus funds...read more

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