The endangered Florida panther is the last surviving big cat species on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Experts estimate that only 120-230 panthers survive in the southwestern corner of the state, where they are faced with a booming human population and the development that comes with it. In 2024, 36 panther deaths were recorded by state wildlife officials, which was the most since 2016. The majority of those deaths are the result of collisions with vehicles, including one that was struck by a train, state statistics show. As Florida’s population continues to be among the fastest growing in the nation, ecologists say that is putting added stress on an already shrinking habitat for the Florida panther. Male panthers require home ranges of around 200 square miles to find prey and mate, putting them in the path of Florida’s growing network of roads and highways, built to accommodate a growing human population. The Florida panther, which is similar to but smaller than the Western cougar or mountain lion, once roamed across a large swath of the southeastern U.S. Hunting and habitat loss have decimated their numbers and confined them to a shrinking space of about 2 million acres (809,000 hectares), according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Indeed, along what were once narrow country roads in eastern Collier and Lee counties there are numerous major projects under way that will create tens of thousands of homes and the traffic that comes with them. "We think this is the last stand for the Florida panther because many of the areas have already been encroached upon and eaten up through development and mining,” said Amber Crooks, senior environmental policy advisor at Conservancy of Southwest Florida Environmental groups have been fighting an uphill battle to curb some of the development and vow to continue those efforts. "For me, Florida Panther and its ability to persist here is really the litmus test as to whether or not we are saving enough green space to protect our own interests because areas that the panther use are places we like to recreate, they are areas where we need for our wetlands, for our water resources, drinking water and our agricultural production,” said Crooks.