FOR THE FIRST time, two Florida panthers have been filmed fighting, sparring over territory in South Florida.
On a turkey hunt with his son, Andres Pis was holed up in a blind when he saw movement to his right. Sure enough, it was a young male Florida panther. Just as he began filming with his smartphone, an older male “came out of nowhere and hit him like a freight train,” Pis recalls.
What ensued was a vicious battle, with the older male gaining the upper hand. After grappling for nearly a minute, the young male ran off, though Pis thinks it’s likely that the older male later killed the youngster.
Pis, a hunting guide and land manager, recorded the incident on March 31 on private land southwest of Lake Okeechobee, near Clewiston. He posted the footage to a Facebook page he runs along with Mike Elfenbein, The Panthers of South Florida, where the two regularly upload photos and videos of encounters with the cats.
The unprecedented footage shows a phenomenon called intraspecific aggression, in which two panthers fight for control over territory, often to the death. After road strikes, these kinds of fights are the second-leading documented cause of death for Florida panthers, a federally listed endangered subspecies of cougar.
Click to read the full article:
