For the first time, two Florida panthers have been filmed fighting, sparring over territory in South Florida. On a turkey hunt with his son, Andres Pis was holed up in a blind when he saw movement to his right. Sure enough, it was a young male Florida panther. Just as he began filming with his smartphone, an older male “came out of nowhere and hit him like a freight train,” Pis recalls. What ensued was a vicious battle, with the older male gaining the upper hand. After grappling for nearly a minute, the young male ran off, though Pis thinks it’s likely that the older male later killed the youngster. Pis, a hunting guide and land manager, recorded the incident on March 31 on private land southwest of Lake Okeechobee, near Clewiston. He posted the footage to a Facebook page he runs along with Mike Elfenbein, The Panthers of South Florida , where the two regularly upload photos and videos of encounters with the cats. The unprecedented footage shows a phenomenon called intraspecific aggression, in which two panthers fight for control over territory, often to the death. After road strikes, these kinds of fights are the second-leading cause of death for Florida panthers , a federally listed endangered subspecies of cougar. “I have not seen footage like this before, and it helps us to visualize what happens in an aggressive encounter,” says Darrell Land, the Florida panther team leader with the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission . “The larger panther appeared to be dominating the other, but the smaller was putting up considerable resistance.” David Shindle , the panther coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says by email that this panther battle “unfolded on well-managed private lands that provide ideal habitat for the panther.” The footage […]
