Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008

Neighbors wonder if panther was hanging out in the 'hood

A panther living the country club life?

That's what several residents of Lakewood Ranch believe.

Sherry Robinson and Marcie Ieropoli, who live a few doors apart in the Weston neighborhood of Lakewood Ranch Country Club, said they recently spotted what they believe was one of the rare panthers.

The sightings occurred on different days and different places. During a casual conversation around a swimming pool, the two women learned they had each seen a cat with a large head and a four-foot body, excluding the tail.

Robinson's husband, Jim, saw the big cat first about 8 a.m. Tuesday when he stepped onto the lanai with his morning cup of coffee.

"The cat was slowly walking, and then it sat down for a little bit. It kind of went behind some bushy trees. We believe it bedded down in there and then came out again that evening about 6:30 in the same area," Sherry Robinson said.

Keeping her distance, she tried to follow the big cat as it passed behind houses in the neighborhood, crossed Woodmore Terrace near a home with a Halloween scarecrow display, and disappeared into a preserve.

In the bright daylight, the cat appeared to be a tan color, but when it reemerged in early evening it seemed more gray, Robinson said.

Ieropoli said she and her husband, Brian Najar, were taking a stroll through the neighborhood when they saw a big cat.

"It was just lying down. At first we thought it was a deer. We couldn't have been more than 50 feet away," Ieropoli said.

But as they got closer, they could see it was a large cat.

"We couldn't see the tail because it was lying down," she said.

Neither of the couples were able to photograph what they saw.

Gary Morse, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said panthers have been spotted from the Florida Everglades northward to Pasco and Volusia counties.

Typically, if a panther is spotted this far north it is a wandering male, he said.

The breeding range for Florida panthers is south of the Caloosahatchee River, which flows from Lake Okeechobee at Moore Haven west to Fort Myers and the Gulf of Mexico. Female panthers are not found north of the Caloosahatchee, although male panthers may wander hundred of miles in search of females, Morse said.

The population of Florida panthers is estimated at between 100 and 300, he said.

"It's up some because we introduced Texas panthers to temporarily address an interbreeding problem," Morse said.

"Some cats do better around an urbanized setting, but generally they don't do so well around people. They would prefer to be elsewhere," Morse said.

Each Florida panther requires a territory of 30 to 150 square miles.

"If someone sees a panther they should consider themselves lucky. They are no threat to people. We've never had a human attacked by a Florida panther," Morse said.

Their favorite prey includes wild hogs and deer, no strangers to Lakewood Ranch.

"We usually see a lot of deer over here, but we haven't lately. Maybe they are just wary," Robinson said.

James A. Jones Jr., East Manatee editor, can be reached at 708-7916.

Sherry Robinson shows where a big cat that she believes was a panther made its way through her Lakewood Ranch neighborhood recently.