Some panthers are special.
Florida lost another iconic cat recently as a 10-year-old male dubbed 255 was hit and killed by a vehicle along Corkscrew Road in eastern Lee County.
Photographers, preserve managers and advocates had seen the cat for years, roaming the Corkscrew Swamp Ecosystem Watershed, a 60,000-acre marsh near the Lee-Collier border.
“I saw him every couple of weeks but i had no idea where he went, and apparently he cruised a broad area of swamp,” Tom Mortenson said when viewing a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission map of 255’s travels over the course of more than a year. “I’m stunned (to see how far he traveled). People with backyards within 10 miles of that area may have gotten photos of him too.”
Panthers are the official state animal, voted so by a group of third graders in 1981, and occasionally a special panther comes along.
There was Uno, the late one-eyed panther that was shot in the face and rear who eventually ended up at the Naples Zoo; No Ears, a male whose collar was found on the side of highway, causing biologist to believe he was killed by a car; and Florida panther 191, a 14-year-old female with Texas cougar genetics who produced many generations of cubs and is credited with help saving the population.