# @natgeo on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/COL60oNDcia
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/11684878-natgeo-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/9658b723a9.jpg
- **Posted:** 2021-04-27T22:30:42.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** National Geographic (@NatGeo) — https://gondola.cc/NatGeo

## Caption

Photo by carltonward / The Florida Legislature took a big leap forward for conservation today with unanimous passage of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act. Thank you to insidenatgeo for supporting the Florida Wildlife Corridor vision over the past decade. Please stay tuned to PathofthePanther and CarltonWard in the coming weeks for more about what this means for people and wildlife.

A Florida panther jumps over a flooded swamp trail in the Everglades.
 
The Florida panther, a subspecies of the puma, is the last large cat population in the eastern United States. Hunted and pushed out of the rest the their historic range, the breeding population of panthers (the area where females are present) is isolated to the southern tip of Florida. While panthers are indeed back from the brink of extinction—from as few as 20 in the 1970s, when they were placed on the Endangered Species List—up to nearly to 200 today, panthers still have a long path to recovery. There needs to be three times as many, and that will require access to more of Florida—and eventually other southeastern states. The panther's best hope for recovery is the conservation of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, which will give the panther access to the land it needs for the breeding population to continue expanding northward. 
 
We spent two years working with camera traps in the same location to capture this photo. It was crucial to show a panther in the subtropical swamps in South Florida, not just because they are beautiful, but because without these remote wilderness areas, the panther would not have had a refuge to survive in the eastern U.S. at all. Now on the brink of recovery, the panther can show us the land we need to protect—for panthers, most other wildlife species in Florida, and ourselves. 
 
The PathofthePanther project is supported by the National Geographic Society, working to inspire the protection of the Florida Wildlife Corridor—the statewide network of public preserves and private farms, ranches and forests that the panther needs to survive. ​insideNatGeo #FloridaWildlifeCorridor FL_WildCorridor #KeepFLWild

Check out Nat Geo's link in bio for more on this story.

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## Tags

floridawildlifecorridor, keepflwild

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