Computer-based Tools for Managing and Modeling the Florida Panther
 Population Over the Landscape of South Florida

          E. Jane Comiskey1 and Louis J. Gross1

The mountain lion once ranged throughout the Southeastern United
States, from the coastal plains to the mountains. This formerly
widespread species is now represented by the small population of the
Florida Panther that survives in the wildlands of South Florida.
Recent studies have demonstrated that the public lands of South Florida
(Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve) are
probably inadequate to support a viable panther population. Over half
the home range area for radio-collared panthers has been on private
lands. Of the 43 panther monitored during the 1980's, only 4 ranged
exclusively on public land. It has been estimated that public lands in
South Florida would be able to support only 9-22 panthers, with doubt
as to whether in-area reproductive capabilities could continue to
sustain this number.

One of the primary tools for assessing the impact of the
Everglades Restoration on the Florida Panther is the Deer/Panther
Model being developed as part of the USGS/BRD -sponsored Across Trophic
Level System Simulation (ATLSS) modeling project. As currently
configured, the ATLSS models are designed to operate over the region
modeled by the South Florida Water Management Model, which provides the
hydrologic input that drives the ATLSS models. A major deficiency of
this modeling effort, with regard to assessing and managing the Florida
Panther, is that the SFWMM region does not include some of the highest
quality and most critical habitat for the panther. These critical lands
include public and private lands to the west and north of Big Cypress
National Preserve. The public lands that are included in the SFWMM
typically do not produce enough young panthers to maintain a viable
population that can emigrate and colonize new areas. In fact, the
current model area actually serves as a "sink" for young panthers
produced by the breeding populations north and west of Big Cypress.

Until the region covered by the ATLSS Deer/Panther Model can be
extended to include the breeding populations west and north of Big
Cypress, it will be impossible to properly calibrate and test the
Deer/Panther Model, and the model might be of little use for regional
assessment and management of the Florida Panther. We propose to extend
the area covered by the ATLSS Deer/Panther Model to include the core
areas for activity and reproduction that lie outside the current
boundaries of the SFWMM. As noted in a previous version of this
proposal, carrying out this extension in a hydrodynamically exact
manner would involve modification of the SFWMM 2 x 2 mile hydrology
model. This would involve making use of historical satellite (LandSat)
images to develop time series of hydrologic conditions and vegetation
changes relevant to the quality of panther habitat.

Due to funding limitations, we here propose to develop only a very
coarse hydrology model, not hydrodynamically correct, but making
use of estimates from other available models (including the NSM) to
extend any particular scenario to the areas north and west of BCNP.
This will produce spatially and temporally varying estimates of water
depth in this region, but without a full hydrodynamic linkage to the
model which produced the particular scenario being investigated. This
effort will require the following tasks:

The ATLSS Deer/Panther Model will be expanded to run over the
added areas outside of BCNP. This will allow direct comparison of
ATLSS Deer/Panther output to panther radiotracking data, much of which
covers areas outside the boundaries of the WMM and current ATLSS
models.

Visualization and analysis tools will be developed for analyzing
panther radiotracking data and comparing observations to ATLSS
Deer/Panther model output over the entire range of panthers in South
Florida.



1The Institute of Ecological Modeling, The University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996