More about our warm blooded friends coming soon.
FLORIDA PANTHER
The Florida panther is the last subspecies of Puma still surviving in the eastern United States and is an endangered species.
Endangered:
Historically occurring throughout the southeastern United States, today the panther is restricted to less than 5 percent of its historic range in one breeding population of fewer than 100 animals, located in south Florida. The panther is threatened with extinction, and human development in panther habitat negatively impacts recovery. Panthers are wide ranging, secretive, and occur at low densities. They require large contiguous areas to meet their social, reproductive, and energetic needs. Panther habitat selection is related to prey availability (i.e., habitats that make prey vulnerable to stalking and capturing are selected). Limiting factors for the panther are habitat availability, prey availability, and lack of human tolerance.
Territory:
Although we call them Florida panthers, these shy cats once roamed throughout the entire Southeast from east Texas to the Atlantic and north to parts of Tennessee. Overhunting, loss of habitat, and reduction of their primary prey reduced their population to a remnant living on the southern tip of Florida. They prefer upland habitat but will use diverse habitats. They mainly prey on deer and hogs.
Appearance:
Overall coat color is tan (not black), often darker along center of back; creamy white under; black on back of ears, muzzle, and tail tip.
Males: average 130 pounds and measure 6 to 8 feet with the tail; shoulder height of 2.6 feet; front pad width greater than 2 inches. Males defend home ranges up to 200 sq. miles that overlap ranges of several females; mature at 3 years; average lifespan of 10 years if they reach adulthood.
Females: average 80 pounds and measure 5 to 7 feet with tail; shoulder height of 2.2 feet; front pad width less than 2 inches. Females have a home range of 80 sq. miles, overlapping with other females. Females mature at 1.5 years, breed year round with peak denning period in spring, den in palmetto thickets to gestation of 3 months. A typical litter size has an average of 2 kittens. Kittens leave den at 2 months, fully independent at 1.5 years.
Weight at Birth: 4-8 ounces
Adult Shoulder Height: 2-3 feet
Adult Body Length: 5-8 feet
Diet: local wildlife, squirrels, deer
Life Span: 8-15 years in the wild, 10-20 years in captivity
Habitat: Southwestern Florida, average 100 square miles
Population: Approximately 100 in the wild
BLACK BEAR
The black bear once found throughout Florida except the Florida Keys are now localized to a few places in Florida. These are the largest native land mammals in Florida. Bears are good swimmers and and use water to keep themselves cool from the Florida heat.
"Sizing" up the Black Bear
Bears are sexually dimorphic. This phrase means that adult males are larger than adult females, however because smaller males are similar in size to adult females, it is difficult to determine the sex of a bear by their size alone.
Some people think that because white-tailed deer body size is reduced from northern to southern states, especially key deer, then black bears in Florida are smaller than more northern bears. This is not true.
Adult males in Florida normally weigh between 250 - 450 pounds, and adult females in Florida normally weigh between 125 - 250 pounds.
■There have been two male bears that set a record for the state in excess of six hundred pounds. One was a 635 lb bear harvested in 1945 in Volusia County. The other was a 624 lb, eight year old male roadkill in December 1988 in Collier County.
■The record weight for a female bear is 400 pounds, roadkill in January 2007 in Liberty County. Bears that habitually feed on human supplied foods such as garbage and wildlife feed or pet food to be abnormally large.
The weight of individual black bears varies greatly throughout the year.
Food availability is low during the winter months, even in Florida, and both male and female bears lose weight. Bears can lose up to 25% of their body weight while denning.
As plants grow new shoots in the spring, bears begin to gain weight. During the summer breeding season, males spend most of their time searching for mates. Females with or without cubs spend most of their time foraging.
Most people find it hard to estimate the size of a bear that they have seen in the wild. One good method is to pay attention to the relative size of their ears. Because the ears of black bears reach full length when they are juveniles, small, skinny yearlings appear to have very long "Mickey-mouse" ears on slender faces, while large males seem to have very small, rounded ears on wide, round heads.
Also, adult males tend to have wide, wedge shaped faces, while females have more slender looking faces.
As breeding season ends and fall begins, both sexes forage and gain up to 1-1/2 times their summer weight. This is called "hyperphagia."
Male bears, may stay active and eating all winter. Gaining weight allows bears to make it through the winter months.
Females need to be in good condition to produce and feed cubs during denning. Bears can gain or lose over a 100 pounds over one year! 
What Does a Black Bear Eat?
Bears are called omnivores because they eat both plant and animal matter. A bear’s diet consists of 80% plant and 20% animal matter.
Black bears eat mainly acorns, nuts, berries, and other vegetation as well as insects. A small percentage of their diet is meat which is mostly obtained from scavenging.
The black bear diet varies seasonally and yearly depending on fluctuations in plant productivity but it is also based on geographic variation from one region of Florida to the next. For example, saw palmetto berries are a high portion of bear diets in the Osceola population, but insignificant in the Apalachicola population. This ability to find and eat a wide variety of food types can bring bears into contact with humans. For example bears can be attracted to garbage, honey, barbeque grills, wildlife feeders, etc.
Living with Black Bears:
Due to the increasing number of communities being established, many animals are being forced out of their homes and areas. With this comes the problems of these animals trying to seeking out food in habitats that is unfamiliar to them. Black Bears especially learn very quickly. Bears fed intentionally or unintentiionally by carelessly leaving out food or garbage-will associate food with people. These bears can become a nuisance or aggressive and may have to be destroyed.
Take some steps to avoid attacting bears with food or garbage if they are in your area.
Steps to avoid bear attraction:
- Store all garbage in containers with tight-fitting lids and place themm along the inside walls of your garage, basement, a sturdy shed or other secure place.
- Use bear-resistant garbage containers if you live in an area frequented by black bears.
- Wash garbage containers with a disenfectant solution at least once a week to remove odors.
- Put out garbage on collection day, not the night before.
- Clean up after pets. Ifyou feed them outside, remember to pick up the leftover food and remove bowls after they have finished.
- Avoid feeding birds, if you live in bear country.
Black Bears and Hibernation:
Black bears do not hibernate instead they experience what is often called 'partial hibernation' or 'winter lethargy'. This period of reduced activity occurs in all black bear populations because winter lethargy is an adaptation to the lack of available food, not low temperatures.
Bears in southern states, from North Carolina south to Louisiana, den for shorter periods and sleep less deeply than bears in colder climates. While denned bears in northern states are very lethargic and less responsive to people, bears in the South readily run away when people come close to their den.
What Makes a Den?
In Florida, males and non-pregnant females may den up in dense vegetation for only a few weeks or a month.
Pregnant females will den up for the entire winter, and because their cubs will be born in the den, they often select more protected sites.
Dens may be in tree cavities, under blow-downs or fallen logs, or ground 'nests' in dense thickets
Breeding and Reproduction
The breeding season for black bears runs from June to July, but cubs are not born until late January to early February.
Bears have delayed implantation. If the mother is in poor condition and nutritionally stressed, the fertilized egg may be “reabsorbed”; the partially developed fetus will not develop further; or cubs will be miscarried and eaten by the female.
This adaptation to periodic food shortages prevents the sow from producing offspring for which she cannot care.
Under normal circumstances, the fertilized egg will implant in November or early December, and grow normally until birth in about 8-12 weeks.
. The Bear Cub
Bear cubs are very small at birth, only 225 - 450 grams (8 - 15 ounces) and the size of a small squirrel. They have a very fine coat of hair but their eyes are closed. Litters range from 1 to 5 cubs, but 2 or 3 are most common in Florida. The cubs nurse and play in the den until leaving in spring. Cubs stay with their mother for a year and a half, and will usually/almost always den with her the following winter.
Since bear cubs stay with their mother until the summer of their second year, young bears may be called either “cubs of the year” or dependent yearlings” when they are still with their mother, depending on their age and size.
During their second summer, the family group breaks up, the juveniles wander off on their own, and the adult female is ready to breed again. FeFemale yearlings will likely establish their home ranges near or overlapping their mothers, while male yearlings will find new areas to establish home ranges.
Taking care of the cubs for 2 summers means that adult females will typically only breed every other year.
What’s In an Age?
Determining the average life-span for wild black bears is very difficult.
The 2 oldest known bears from Florida were 20 years old (killed in 1985 during a legal bear hunt held on Apalachicola Wildlife Management Area) and 19 years old (captured in 2004 as part of a University of Kentucky Glades/Highland Bear Population Study). Both bears were females (sows). The oldest known male, from the Ocala population, was killed by a vehicle at age 16.
In zoos, black bears have been known to live into their 30's. Adult black bears have no predators besides humans and other bears, but do suffer mortality from other sources such as transportation related mortality.
