People-Panther Guidelines Issued as Florida Panther Population Grows There are now between 80 and 100 panthers in Florida, a four-fold increase over the past 25 years, federal wildlife officials said today, announcing new guidelines for human-panther interaction. One of the rarest large mammals in the United States, the Florida panther, Puma concolor coryi, is listed as endangered under both the federal Endangered Species Act and Florida law. Once panthers lived from eastern Texas or western Louisiana and the lower Mississippi River Valley, east through the southeastern United States including all of Florida. Twenty-five years ago numbers fell as low as 30 animals, but recovery actions, particularly genetic augmentation initiated in 1995, enabled the population to grow to an estimated 80-100 panthers. During this same period, the Florida human population has grown 260 percent, from about five million to nearly 18 million people. Because of increases in numbers of people and panthers, urban-suburban areas now interface with panther habitat....