Wildlife News: 2 Florida Panthers Found Dead, Raising 2019 Death Toll To 5

Two endangered Florida panthers were discovered dead within four days of each other, raising the 2019 death toll to five.

According to a report issued by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, a female panther's body was found dead on Friday at a national preserve, while a male panther was found dead on a street.

Both deaths were in Collier County, which is located in Southwest Florida. Collier has among the heaviest concentrations of the state's panthers.

In addition to the latest deaths, there have been three other panthers deaths in 2019 — two due to vehicle collisions and one due to "intraspecific aggression." Twenty-six of the 30 panthers found dead by state biologists in 2018 were killed by vehicles.

The panthers, which were once heavily prevalent in the Florida peninsula and the Southeastern United States, are now scarce in number and difficult to count due to somewhat outdated evaluation methods.

An FWC report released in February 2017 estimated that are between 120 to 230 subadult panthers.

The panther population has seen growth in recent years, as the estimated number was between 100 to 140 in 2014 — a sharp rise from the 20 to 30 panthers in the 1970s and 1980s.

The number of Florida panther deaths reached a peak of 48 in 2015. There were 42 panther deaths in 2016 but the number of deaths dropped to 30 in 2017 and 30 in 2018.