Friends - this action to federal-decision makers is now more important than ever.  The local Collier County government has been in support of a building boom in panther habitat of late - and on Tuesday just approved the massive "Town of Big Cypress" for the heart of the habitat and adjacent to the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.  Please urge your friends and contacts to sign this petition.  We're going to send it off to the federal decision-makers quickly - and would love to have it reach 200,000 signers (currently over 160,000).  Here is a link you can share:

https://www.change.org/ProtectPantherHabitat

Excerpt from the recent article:

In a letter to LoCastro last week, Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association, said the commissioner could "well be the deciding vote," urging him to side against the villages.

"One of the county's Rural Lands Stewardship Area main goals is to direct development away from areas heavily used by wildlife," Schwartz wrote. "These two projects would do just the opposite. They would bring habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation to the very heart of the Florida panther's remaining habitat."

He listed a number of other concerns, from increasing human-wildlife conflicts to creating a tax burden for current residents.

Records show 18 Florida panthers have died in just the first four months of 2021, 13 of them by being hit by a car.