I may have misunderstood the narrator at the time. I thought the introduction of the new cats was to supplement the gene pool of the original Florida panthers remaining. Don't recall the mention of an earlier introduction for the purpose.
Yeah, and as I stated earlier... I googled it and they were down to what they believe 20 - 25 wild native cats, and introduced 8 females from TX during the late 90s...
I think they believe there are something like 400 of them now. Will go back and double check though, standby...
If that is the case, from 30 something to 400 is doing pretty good, if ya ask me....
http://www.fws.gov/floridapanther/panther_faq.html
" How many Florida panthers are there? A single wild population in south Florida of 100-160 adult panthers is all that remains of a species that once ranged throughout most of the southeastern United States. (See the Statement on Esitmating Panther Population Size for info on how this number was reached.) This remnant breeding population is in Lee, Collier, Hendry, Dade and Monroe counties. A few males have been documented in central Florida, but no females are known to be in that area. The Florida panther was eliminated over much of its historical range by the late 1800's by humanpersecution and habitat destruction. Because the panther was geographically isolated in south Florida, no natural gene exchange occurred with other puma subspecies. Inbreeding caused a decline in the health and reproduction of the few remaining panthers. By 1995, only 20-30 panthers remained in the wild. That year, eight female Texas cougars were relocated to south Florida to restore genetic variability to the population. All offspring of the Texas cougars are considered to be Florida panthers. The genetic restoration of the Florida panther was successful and the number of panthers tripled in 10 years."
