Plan to protect Florida panthers creates identity complex

MIAMI -- The Florida panther, the feline carnivore that roams what's left of the state's cypress swamps and other wilds, enjoys almost mythic status in this region.

Its image adorns license plates. The National Hockey League franchise is named for the cat. And it is, officially, the Florida state animal.

But now a new plan for saving the vaunted predator is reopening awkward questions for the animal's admirers: What, exactly, is a Florida panther?

Scientists believe there are only about 80 left in Florida. And given the shortage of habitat in the cat's rapidly developing namesake state, the draft recovery plan for the Florida panther, issued recently by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, proposes to export some of the predators out of state -- and names potential sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama.

The Florida panther roamed those states long ago, wildlife biologists said, and reintroducing it in those areas could enable it to establish populations large enough to ward off extinction.

But the proposal to expand the range of the predator, which is being met warily from officials in other states -- where farmers fear attacks on livestock -- is also restarting debates about whether the Florida panther, officially considered an endangered subspecies, is for all practical purposes identical to the cougar, a far more common animal that lives in much of western North America.

''I'm not even sure at this point that a Florida panther, as a subspecies, exists," said David Goad, deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, who opposes bringing the animal to Arkansas.

Crossbreeding between Texas cougars and Florida panthers, combined with modern genetic testing showing fewer distinctions between the two than previously believed, has led many to question the unique identity of Florida's fearsome mascot. ''I think they had to do what they had to do, but it kind of clouds things," Goad said of the crossbreeding, which was initiated by wildlife officials in 1995 to eliminate the effects of inbreeding in the Florida animal.

The identity of the Florida panther, and just how distinct it is from the cougar, has been a matter of evolving science.

At the beginning of the 20th century, some scientists classified the Florida panther as a species. It later lost that distinction as scientists decided it was really just a subspecies, one of several in North America. It won federal protection as an endangered subspecies in 1973.

Its hold on survival since then has been tenuous at best.

The estimated population of Florida panthers dropped to as low as 30 in the early 1990s, and symptoms of inbreeding, including undescended testicles, were rife.

It was then that wildlife officials introduced eight cougars from Texas into the state.

The crossbreeding has been considered a success because the deleterious effects of inbreeding have been reduced and the number of cats, by some estimates, has more than doubled, officials said.

But the new crossbred cats are ''Arnold Schwarzenegger kinds of cats compared to the old Florida panthers," said Stephen J. O'Brien, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health and the author of ''Tears of the Cheetah," a book that covers some Florida panther genetics issues. ''They look like they're on steroids. When gene flow takes place between two subspecies that have been separated for a long time, then natural selection shuffles the genetic deck."

Shortly after the cougars were introduced, a team of scientists began gathering genetic samples from more than 300 cats in North and South America. They found enough genetic similarity between Florida panthers and cougars that they recommended the two be considered the same subspecies.

''There was nothing unique to the Florida panther's genetic markers" said Melanie Culver, a geneticist for the US Geological Survey and the lead author of the study. ''At a subspecies level they are no different from other North American cougars."

Culver said she considers the Florida panther a ''distinct population," because it has some characteristic traits, and as such it would find equal protection under the Endangered Species Act.