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The panther was alive
after contact,

then it came over here and collapsed.

Okay.

So, let's have a look at it,
see what's going on.

He's dead. This cat's just been hit
because he's not in rigor yet.

He's still soft.
Some wounds on the feet.

I think he must have gotten hit here
on this side of the body.

Probably his internal injury
that actually is what killed him.

You can see his teeth, Carlton.

These guys, when they're older,
right, you get a ridge here.

- And so his teeth look beautiful, right?
Perfect.

Perfect, pearly white,
so I would say he's a young cat.

I mean, just by size,
he's probably got to be a year old,

but based on his teeth, I wouldn't say
he's much older than that at all.

This is the number one
cause of death, right?

Vehicle collision is number one.
But in the last two weeks we have three.

Any time you're losing this number
of animals from a population this small,

obviously, it's a huge dent, for sure.

We're gonna reach a threshold,
or maybe we're already there,

for this little bit of piece of land
that's left for them.

And just a few years ago, this
spot right here would have been woods.

Sure.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission says

another endangered panther died
because of a vehicle collision.

It brings the total,
now, to 18 this year.

Florida panthers once roamed
the entire southeast,

but are now mostly confined

to just a small region of Florida
along the Gulf of Mexico.

These animals are like ghosts.

This is the Florida Everglades,

and a massive effort is underway to recover

one of the most endangered animals
on Earth, the Florida Panther.

It's absolute stealth. It's quiet.

It's lethal.

As Florida was settled, the Panther,

a kind of cougar or mountain lion,

was considered a threat
to people and cattle.

It's a pioneer
that can travel hundreds of miles.

At present, there are so few panthers

that extinction could be
just around the corner.

We're destroying so many
of the natural habitats in the world

that the species extinction rate

is now estimated to have increased
to as much as one thousand times

over what it occurred
before humankind came along.

There could be a panther sitting
beneath this palm,

staring at us right now,
and we would have no idea that it's there.

There's considerable danger
and concern

any time you capture and manipulate
a wild animal.

If we can cause one litter of kittens
to survive,

we've increased the population
by 10 percent.

Got it?
Yeah, go.

The last survivors live deep in the swamp
in areas for which man had little use.

And it's an emblem of a wildness.
It has survived over millennia.

These truly wild spaces
that we need to help save ourselves.

Morning, Betty.
Morning.

Did you manage to keep the feet
dry?

Yup. For now.

We call this area "Kahayatle",
which is shimmering waters.

The sun shining on the water,

and with this wind blowing,
the water rippling,

and the water just shimmering
and sparkling like little diamonds.

You know, I'm in an airboat,
but what if I was in a dugout canoe,

and this is what I saw
for miles and miles and miles.

Because maybe, eventually, it could return
to what my ancestors saw.

On a lot of these tree islands,
we put our ancestors to rest.

So our ancestors' DNA is in that tree.

That's what we mean,
we're a part of the land.

It flows in your blood veins.

It's crazy to think that there
was a panther right here.

It is. There's not really
any land in there.

Wow.

You could tell that's supposed to
be high ground because of that tree.

This is the video
from this exact spot.

You could see here,
the dry ground in here,

so the water was much lower
than it is now.

So he wouldn't have any problems

going from island to island
and making his way here.

If I could find just a little
piece of dry land,

I'd wanna put a camera trap there.

Just ease your way in,
'cause you don't know what's down there.

You can't see.

If a big python gets me,
will you come rescue me?

I'll film it.

In 2016, there was a video
of a Florida panther,

and I've got the GPS coordinates.

I'm going to try to find my way
to that exact point

to see if there's
any dry land left here.

Did you find it?

I know this is supposed to be
a tree island, but...

I didn't really find any dry land.

It shows you how hard it would be
to be a deer or a panther

trying to live
in conditions like this.

This whole island
is under three feet of water.

So basically impossible.
Yeah. Yep.

- Have to keep looking North.
Right.

This is our home.

Just like it's the home
to the panther, the deer, the frogs.

This is our home.

And on a spiritual level,
this is like our church.

- And now it's underwater.
- Yes.

This is the Everglades.

This is one of the most widely
known natural treasures in the world.

But we're letting it die.

Our coastlines are pushing in,
the seas are coming up,

it's ditched and diked, and actually
dammed by roads that cut across it.

These green patches, which would normally
be stepping stones of dry land.

They're now all underwater.

And it's just a matter of time
before they're gone altogether.

I really started caring a lot
about the panther

once I started caring a lot
about wildlife corridors.

If we look back, the panther
was across the entire continent,

and over time, as we've fragmented
and broken up that land,

the only remnant left
in the entire eastern United States

has been this relatively small piece
of the Everglades,

and not even
that island of habitat is safe.

So without saving a wildlife corridor,

there is no hope for revival
for the Florida panther.

All right, come on back.

All right. Come on.

It will be all right.

It's been a full circle journey

because I started
my photography career in Africa,

but every time I came home to Florida,
the landscape was visibly changing.

It took leaving for a few months
and coming home to see how fast,

and it was a real wake-up call for me.

One, two, three and up.

Wonderful.

That's what he was going for...

My ancestors moved to Florida
in the early to mid-1800's.

My great, great, great-grandfather
homesteaded in this county,

in Hardee County, in the 1850's.

And here we go. Here we go.

As a kid, I came here
thinking about our ranch.

As an adult, I come here thinking
about all ranches.

In these places is the hope
for saving wildlife corridors,

that can help the panthers
find their new territory.

Here, we're in a strand of oak forest.

Deep, dark green, pocket of woods.

It's the type of place where,
if bears and panthers ever come back,

where they might make a den.

It was on a cattle ranch, in 1973,

when the last female panther was seen
north of the Caloosahatchee River.

Since then,
they've vanished from this landscape.

But the ranches are still there.

And there's hope that someday
a female panther will return.

This is where the panther project
began for me.

Where my path into trying to tell
the panther story,

and I wanted to find the wildest,

most representative
Florida panther habitat.

You drop down out of the pine flatwoods,
into this cypress forest,

it's like a sense of quiet
and wildness overcomes the place.

It's like nowhere else I've been,

and it's the heart
of this south Florida wilderness.

You know that somewhere

a Florida panther
is stalking through that forest.

Moment of truth is whether the camera
fires here, when we try to cross.

Nothing.

Always something.

So something's going on
with this deal.

Trigger's dead. Battery 42 percent.

One thousand,
nine hundred and fourteen shots.

Got more than a thousand pictures
compressed in two days.

Damn.

Got the legs of a panther
flying through.

He's like just a pair of feet
right here.

This trigger may have picked him up,
but by the time the camera fired,

he was already down here.

Where's the first shot?
There's nothing.

Makes no sense to me at all.

I could try for two more years, and
I might not ever replicate that capture.

The chance of me seeing
a Florida panther in the daylight

with a camera in my hands
is next to nothing.

But the camera trap,

it's a way to actually have
the panther take its own picture.

Your camera is one or two feet away
from a panther.

And so it's giving us
access to this world.

That's something we've never had
a chance to even see before.

This project has been
the hardest thing I've ever attempted.

It takes a tremendous amount of time,
energy, and luck to get these images.

And it's so far from certain
that we're actually going to succeed.

As much time as I spend obsessively
trying to photograph panthers,

I think about the land

because this panther is an emblem of
this land that is very much endangered.

It's so hard to show the story.

- Lights?
Yep.

And you have to show people the animal

in order to create that connection,
that love, that appreciation.

It's all about setting the stage.
And waiting.

We're going to go out
and try to locate

ten to 12 radio-collared
Florida panthers.

If all goes well, we'll come back in one
piece.

Naples 4-4-1-0-0, Papa Mike.

Right there, with Oscar, wait for taxi.

1-0-0 Papa Mike, roger,
runway 1-4 taxi via bravo.

Number 2-4 tango whiskey,
contact Fort Meyers departure. Good day.

I'm glad I took my Dramamine this morning.

Wow, you really do some turns.

Yeah, sorry.
No, it's all good.

Yeah, so we're on the western edge
of the Everglades, Big Cypress ecosystem.

Why was the last puma, east of
the Mississippi, surviving here?

It is the last breeding population

of pumas east of the Mississippi River,

and yeah, you just kind of get a feel for
how impenetrable some of the areas

as you head farther east of Naples,
would be, especially a hundred years ago.

I can imagine this is probably
the last frontier

where settlers and people
wanted to go.

Exactly.

There he is!

- I see him on the trail over there.
Oh, my gosh.

He's heading south on that trail.

Okay.
- Should be coming right over him, I think.

There he is. There he is.

- You see him?
I do.

We just saw a wild Florida Panther.
Absolutely amazing, rare sight to see.

If you're a female panther,

and you strike out on your own
to try to find your own territory,

You would only find a narrow ribbon
of forested land,

that's getting chipped away at
year by year.

This is a turning point.

You can see green turning to concrete,

and land is disappearing
before your eyes.

As we've developed this state,
as we've developed this country,

these wild places have been cut
into smaller and smaller pieces.

These islands, for a wide ranging animal,
are a one way path to extinction.

The panther needs that lifeline to the
north, it needs the northern Everglades,

it needs the pine forests
of the Florida panhandle,

it needs the southern Appalachians
and all the way beyond.

The wildlife corridor is a way

that we can save a path
for the panther, or it's going to be lost.

All new at 4:30.

Florida panthers are dying at
record-breaking rates.

Nearly a dozen hit by cars on Lee County
roads, three in just the last week.

It was obvious that this guy
had multiple broken legs,

but it wasn't until we got him
to the vet clinic

that we really knew
the full extent of his injuries.

We think he actually was hit twice.

So once we got the X-rays,
and we could look at those injuries

and actually palpate and feel the area
where it was fractured,

the back legs
I think were broken in one time,

but probably, the front leg
was hit even a day or two before.

My options are fix the animal
and hope that that stretch

from surgical repair, and rehab goes well,

with all the things that could go wrong,
or euthanasia.

There's not a whole lot
of in-betweens for wild animals.

And I'm not sure even,

in terms of large carnivore rehab
that anybody has done,

three long-bone fracture repair
on a large carnivore

and then had successful rehab
and release.

I'm not even sure that anybody
has done two long-bone fractures.

I think a lot of vets and a lot of people
would look at me, individually,

as making the decision,
and maybe collectively us as a group,

like we're crazy.

- Five cc's b-vits.
- Okay.

The panther team was originally formed

when the population
was down to 20 to 30 animals

to try to bring these animals back.

This particular kitten
is the very first Florida Panther kitten

we've ever had the opportunity
to capture and put a collar on.

We know that we have a problem
with survival of young kittens.

And the factors
that appear to be important

and may all be tangled together
related to this,

are diseases and parasites,
possibly nutrition.

And a real clincher, one thing we're very
concerned about, is the genetics.

If you look back
in the history of the panther project,

we learn collectively as a group,

with this tiny little population
of an endangered sub-species,

the info we get from this cat, to me is
critically valuable for this population.

Really close to the joint, but obviously,
they didn't hit it, which is great.

Yeah, I know, the joint spaces
look pretty nice there.

As you can see, he's got the
double-plate

to counter those mechanical forces
of being a panther

and all the things he needs to do
is just to really reinforce those bones.

He's gone through surgery.

The surgery's gone amazing, and somewhere
along the way, he gets coined "Tres"

for his three broken legs.

There is a spirit to it, right?
This animal truly wanted to survive.

I think we see that in animals
the same we do in people

is that there is a fighter spirit.

Hey, Brian.
Look, we might have one.

It's small enough to be a female.

A total of three tracks found.
One was a nice complete track.

The other two were partial tracks.

And she'd walked there
within the last two days.

Okay. Thanks.
We'll scramble and see you there.

Okay.
- All right. Bye.

For years, we thought
it's only a matter of time

before a female crosses the river.

The photo's only two days old.
Small enough to be a female.

It builds the excitement,
but it's not enough to say for certain.

It's been before my lifetime

since the last female panther was documented

north of the Caloosahatchee River.

You can think of the Caloosahatchee River
as the dividing line

between the northern Everglades
and the southern Everglades.

And it looks like a line across a map

because it's been dredged
into a straight canal.

And that river has been
the northern limit

to the breeding population
of female panthers

for the past 50 years.

It's a formidable barrier
across that landscape,

but you could imagine
standing on the edge of that

and deciding to put your foot in
and take that swim.

If we can capture the right image,

we can show the world
who that panther is.

That's going to be the spark

that lights a much bigger fire
to save this whole corridor.

The tracks never lie.
'Cause tracks that small, for a panther,

it's either gonna be a female or a kitten,

and either way, it's evidence of potential
breeding behavior north of the river.

Maybe we can pick up
some tracks somewhere.

See where
they might be cutting across.

Florida panther is the most
difficult cat I've ever tracked.

Because of the terrain, also because of
the huge home ranges that panthers use.

You need a lot of luck, or you need to be
able to follow a trail for a long time.

I think this could be the spot.
It's a shortcut.

It's shady, so if they're walking during
the day, they're gonna like the shade.

If I only had one camera to put anywhere
in Babcock, this would be it.

To be able to pick a spot in the woods

to have a chance
of even seeing a panther,

the odds are tough.

You come north
of the Caloosahatchee River,

where there might be fewer
than a dozen panthers in total existence,

across the mid-section of the state,
and maybe one female.

Then the odds are going up
almost exponentially.

I have a lot of anticipation
of this particular shot,

it's the most important of my efforts

'cause it will place a panther
in a landscape

that could be nowhere else in the country
other than south Florida.

I'm getting kind of anxious
to see what's on here now.

Like, the anticipation.

This camera's been bumped.

More than I just did.
Okay, let's see what we have here.

Oh, yeah, there's a bear.
Bear cub. Kickass backlight.

Come on, cub, stick your nose up.

Dammit.

The camera's pointed straight
at the ground.

This is gonna be under water
any month now,

so my chance to get this shot
could be over for another year.

To put out a camera and to wait a full
month to go back to check the pictures

to realize that bears came
and wrecked the camera

the day after you changed
the battery 29 days ago.

It's the type of thing that makes you
want to just throw in the towel.

Nothing. Nothing.

Getting emotional.

Sorry. It's been a long couple years.
A long few months. Um...

Thinking about all the time...

Left flash not firing.

Rebuild lens hood for next visit.
Pray for panther.

There's a few along here.
Tracks?

Here's one. Some nice tracks.
That's awesome.

I don't know what it is,
but I'm just fascinated by them.

I knew when I was a little kid
that I wanted to work with cats.

I mean, it was just something
that draws me to them.

It sounds odd, but like I do feel
like I have this connection.

I think this road looks good.

It's a lot of wet area still
on either side,

so it's really the best way to travel east
and west through this side of the swamp.

Which one did you want to check first?
We got how many here? Four?

- Let's check the video camera.
- Okay.

There we are.

So we've had nothing break
the beam since last Friday.

- Oh, my gosh.
Look at that. Oh, my gosh.

- She's amazing.
- She's a pioneer.

- She swam the river.
- Yup. The hope.

She has this graceful elegance to her.

This female who had the tenacity

to cross that barrier and set up
a territory in this new place.

All of a sudden, it's happening in real
time, the stakes could not be higher.

Since this female's on Babcock Ranch,
we've been referring to her as Babs.

Eleven in the morning. 2:00 a.m.

- Panther!
Yes.

The male up here at Babcock Ranch
has this big, blocky head.

He's impressive. And you just see
the rippling of the muscles.

An unimaginable strength in that animal.

They know how to sense each other,

and they know how to smell
the marks that they leave.

So she knew there was
at least one male here.

So, she's got potential mates.

To have a breeding female and new
generations of panthers being born here,

would bring this whole system back
into balance.

As Miccosukee, we are taught to care

for all wildlife.

When the land was new,

the panther's role
was to nurture and protect all things.

This is what

the Elders told us.

When the panther exists,

it takes care of the land

and watches over other wildlife.

Myself, I am of the Panther Clan.

I was taught by my Elders

that you are supposed to be

like the panther.

When we were younger,

we were taught

to be still.

When a panther was going to pass through,

we were not to harass it
or make it afraid,

You would not be afraid of it.

And it would not be afraid of you.

Just as we have room to exist,

Creator also gave the panther
room to exist.

If they no longer exist,

the other animals will also suffer.

As a kid you think, they don't know
what they're talking about,

these are just stories, made up.

But now, as a grandmother,

you know, I see that they weren't
just stories made up.

It's a wonderment of the panther itself.
Somehow, it's still here.

It's still surviving and hanging on.
And reclaiming that homeland.

Because it's like a seed
waiting to be replanted,

so it can grow and branch out.

This is wild citrus, and I don't know
if it goes back to an early homestead here

or whether some animals brought
the seeds in a long time ago.

When my grandad would peel these,

the whole skin would come off
in one perfect piece.

I'm not quite so good.

It brings back memories.

We'd go stand up
on the back of the horse.

or stand up on the back of the jeep

and reach all the wild oranges
and the wild citrus.

And he had his favorite spots.

It stands too far.

This section of oak hammock and swamp
is definitely one of my favorite places

on our ranch,
it's because it's one of the wildest.

I think it's really easy to walk
into a place like this

and feel like
it's going to be here forever.

But in Florida, this place
could be wiped clean just like that.

I mean, I admit, my whole life
I've taken for granted that this ranch

would always be here.
But all that changed this week.

This is so hard to believe.

Three new toll roads

and one that's proposed
to come right through here.

We have the first Florida panther
documented in the northern Everglades

in my lifetime, and here comes a proposal
for three new toll roads.

One of them would cut right
into the heart of her territory.

What this road would do
is basically destroy the heart of Florida.

This morning,
we're learning about a new bill

that would add three major toll highways
in our state.

There's a proposal for more
toll roads all around the state.

It's not just them that are
going to be paying the price.

The Governor signed one of
Florida's largest road projects

in decades, a new toll road.

We're talking about
three separate toll roads,

running through some of our most rural
and undeveloped areas in Florida.

Look at... Warm and toasty.

Mama, look at all the smoke.
Look how high up it goes.

Time to go to sleep!

This is it.

This is really nature's last stand.

And it's going to happen
in our lifetimes.

Down here,
we do things a little slower.

And my granddaddy
had a famous saying that,

"Don't ever get in too big a hurry

because you'll always run past
more than you'll ever catch up with."

Is that Kuta?
That's you, buddy.

Might wanna just double-check your cinch.

You should be tight,
but just double-check it.

- Everybody good?
Yes, sir.

Thanks for letting me ride along
with you guys this morning.

Yeah, man. My pleasure.
I just needed some free help.

Hopefully, it won't turn
into free entertainment.

Have you actually got the female
yet?

With her cubs yet?
Have you got any of her yet?

I haven't gotten the cubs,
so their survivorship is

- one in three on average.
- Really?

And a first time mother
might be lower, so...

So what's the plan here?

We'll throw them back there out on
that grass patch right there behind them.

The first female panther

in more than 40 years
is right here on Babcock Ranch.

You take a piece of land this size,
that panther's got a lot of roaming to do,

and you stop worrying about it getting hit
by a Cadillac or a Buick

trying to cross the road
to try and find something to eat, so...

You look around
at all the big ranches that was here

back in the 60s and 70s and 80s,
and even some of them into the 90s,

you know, these places
are starting to disappear.

It is a dying breed,
and I've been hearing that all my life,

and I always thought it was baloney,
but now that I'm the age that I'm at,

and I see the things
that are happening now, it is dying out.

The Florida cowboy
is an endangered species as well.

Yeah, kind of like the panther, yup.

You expect to have complications.
You expect something to go wrong.

Or you're at least ready for it,
especially with something like this,

where you have three broken legs,
three surgeries,

and you're waiting for that next step,
when we give them the clear.

Alright, let me go load that real quick
into the car, so that's ready to go.

Then I will drop our drugs,
and we'll get ready to dart.

- I'll go run and make sure I've got drugs.
- Okay. Perfect.

This cat is an amazing patient
and healing really well.

Now, we're going to introduce him
into a bigger enclosure

and we're gonna give him a place
to exercise and see if he can do that.

Yeah, I think he's fine. Alright.

What you're trying to do at any time
is make sure that you don't give them

too much in terms of a hurdle
where basically, they reinjure themselves.

We just can't close the door yet.

One, two, three, out.

Okay, in.

- Yup.
- Yup.

Now, you got to lift her
from the metal bar.

They've let us set up a couple
of remote cameras and our blinds.

So there's going to be a moment here
where this cat

steps on dirt for the first time
in a couple of months.

They're just now releasing
this panther

into this larger enclosure.

Here he comes.

His surgeries and rehailitation
look pretty successful.

This panther is now one step closer
to going back to the wild.

So much of these lands are
underwater most of the year.

And the water
is what defines this place,

and it's what brings
the vitality and the life.

In fact, water has been a reality
for the survival of the Florida panther.

And these swamps deep in the Everglades,

where cats have been for thousands
of years, have been the last refuge.

One panther's come through.
Whoa, that's a big alligator.

Check that thing out.

That's a big alligator.

Got one panther walking away.
One bear walking toward the camera.

And then two or three alligators
before the waters came up

and drowned out
my entire camera system.

So we have one more test.
There's a still photo system here.

And there we go. We got flashes.

It's exciting.

Oh, yeah, here comes
a bear straight at the camera.

Long walk into the water.

Up to his elbows.

Getting a little deeper.

Oh, gosh. He stops for a second.
He's sitting down, in the water.

I bet that feels good
when you're 300 pounds and covered in fur.

He's chilling in the water. Wow.

Florida still has this wild heart.

And there's this sense
of exploration and discovery

happening right here, right now.

Oh, here's a panther,
walking straight towards me.

Oh, my gosh.

Cautious maybe because
who knows what's in that water?

Maybe that panther's thinking
about alligators,

maybe that panther's hungry
for alligators,

maybe that panther's scared of alligators?
Who knows? It's all a mystery out here.

Here he is again. Whoa!

A male Florida panther in mid-air.

Raindrops are bouncing off the surface
of the dark water.

In this project
there is so much disappointment,

there's this image of hope.

It gives me the energy to go on.

And I also see that this animal

can persevere
in this harshest of environments.

I have a glimmer of hope.

Morning, Joe. Okay. Ten-four.
You got all that done last night?

Down there? Okay.
Good deal. Good deal.

All right. Well, good,
then that'll make everybody happy.

Yeah, for a day or two anyway.

All right, buddy. Okay. Yes, sir.
See ya tomorrow. All right, bye.

I guess we're going
to be fact-finding and...

kind of making recommendations
back to the Governor

on a proposed toll road
running north through the state.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly
where the road's going to go,

but if it goes through the center of the
state, it's definitely going to open up

a part of this state
that's still pretty much untouched.

That's one of my fears
that it will open up that opportunity.

Investors and their wheels get to
spinning and turning, and here you go.

In two miles,
take exit seven towards downtown west.

Y'all know which state in the
US has the most toll roads?

It is not California, it is not Texas,
it is Florida.

We have 734 miles of toll roads. We don't
need more, and we don't want more.

Toll road to nowhere!
Toll road to nowhere!

Toll road to nowhere!

Florida is a vibrant state
that continues to grow

and requires the development of
an adequate infrastructure network.

These infrastructure improvements
will be built with great sensitivity

towards the protection
of the environment.

Here's the other picture.

That's what we're contending with.

- That was one of your traps you set up?
- Yeah.

Here's my favorite one
that no one's seen until yesterday.

- That's neat.
- I'll send you this.

Commissioner Mike Thompson,
DeSoto County.

- Commissioner Elton Langford.
- Here.

Highlands County,
Commissioner Ron Hamblin.

One thing I know, I researched
the website you guys have,

read some of the documentation.
It said, "to revitalize rural communities"

was one of the goals of this project.
And that kind of stuck out to me.

The word revitalize, that's a pretty
strong word, and when I hear that word,

I think that means
there's something wrong with it.

It needs to be fixed.

That being a rural community
is inherently bad, maybe,

is kind of what I'm thinking when I hear
"revitalize," I think development.

I think rural communities
have a place in our state.

Thank y'all for your time, today.

And then there's this big dark area

in the heart of Florida where people
can see the stars at night.

That is exactly
where the highway's supposed to go.

We're at a really pivotal time.

The first breeding panthers
in nearly 50 years

are showing up north
of the Caloosahatchee River.

What people from this group
are ultimately doing is

deciding the future of wild Florida.

On the road again.

The good Lord
set it up to work a certain way

and we come in
and try to change all that and it...

It don't work. You know,
it causes more problems, and um...

I don't know. It's just a...

seems like the more we mess with stuff
the worse we make it sometimes.

Damn. It's talking
about Irma right now.

On the Safir-Simpson
hurricane wind scale.

Fluctuations in intensity are likely
to continue in the next day or two.

Irma is expected to remain a powerful
Category Four Hurricane

as it approaches Florida.

- It's getting close.
- Central pressure is...

Good thing is that my family is
safe, in the Florida panhandle.

Far ahead of this storm.

I've got about 12 to 18 hours
to decide if I'll evacuate.

And in about 24 hours
this entire place could be underwater.

I feel like this powerful context
that this hurricane creates

adds a whole another layer
to the wildness of the panther story.

Maybe we'll capture an image
that brings all that together.

I really worry about
the female panther out here.

I've been moving cameras
around hoping to get a glimpse

and to figure out if she's still here,
and we don't know.

We just don't have the information.

Now we've got a hurricane,
a Category Five,

Irma, heading straight towards us,

looking like she's going to come
right up the peninsula.

Basically, the only population
of Florida panthers occurs right

where this hurricane looks like
it's gonna come through.

I just wonder if they have any feeling
of this kind of thing coming.

The trail is totally washed out.

I'm doing my best to make sure
my equipment is secure

and safely above the water.

We haven't seen Babs
in more than two months

and there's a chance
we won't see her again.

Maybe she survives the storm.
Maybe she moves on.

I think the cameras and flashes
are safely above the high-water mark,

but it's still uncertain.

Nature's incredibly resilient.
But there are limits.

We can't expect increasingly smaller
and smaller patches of nature

to function and to survive.

Those hurricane force winds
now stretch

across the whole state of Florida
from Sarasota over to the Space Coast.

It was a harrowing day here.

And it was devastating
from the moment it hit.

It was crazy coming in here.
Power poles snapped over,

pine trees cracked like matchsticks.

The last photo we got of Babs
was the beginning of July

and it looked like she was alone.
You know we say all the time,

"They're super resilient
and they're adapted to hurricanes."

And it's true. But like still.

When we get to where the camera is,
we're on the edge of Telegraph.

So that's why I fear
about his camera.

If Telegraph spilled its boundaries,
it's just going to be coming off.

This looks like the end
of the trail for the truck.

This is the highest driest habitat
on this ranch

and we're still covered
to our ankles in water.

It's a lot of water.

I hadn't seen water go off
into that side portion yet.

Oh, gosh. Okay. So there's my...

There's my trigger system submerged.
There's my flashes.

This is not what you want to see.
That's my camera.

This camera has seen its last picture.
That hurts.

How many of these are going to make it?
How many of my cameras?

I could be totally wiped out.

This was the last high dry spot

that was in good habitat
on this side of the swamp.

So there's nowhere to hide.
There's no one bit left untouched.

The female she's in an area
that's still relatively new.

Now you throw a hurricane in the mix.

This female will be not just the first
north of the river in 43 years,

she'll be the first to survive
a hurricane north of the river.

I don't want to interrupt you
but there are fish around your leg.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm driving down the road at--
holy crap.

It's waking towards me.

There's a Florida panther
walking right towards me.

Holy crap here it comes.
Here it comes.

I'll flip the video around
and then I'll get my real camera.

Holy crap.

I can hardly believe this.

I'm staring at a Florida panther

that's right out
in the middle of the road right here.

Oh, ... . He's walking
toward me again.

Why's he do it every time
I make a video? Put this camera down.

I can't freaking believe it.
I cannot freaking believe it.

Freaking crazy.

There's a Florida panther
right under those trees.

Right.

Wow. It's crazy because I haven't looked
at these all in sequence like this.

And so one frame is the best panther
portrait I've ever taken.

The next frame, the panther
turns its head off to the side.

The next frame is a kitten
struggling out of the woods.

And then I heard a ruffling coming
from these palms over in this area.

And sure enough the kitten came hobbling
out of the palms into plain view here.

I went from like intimidated. Excited.

To like a feeling
of pure exhilaration staring

into the wild eyes of this panther
staring back at me and then

just seconds later, like heartbreak
that this kitten is struggling across.

Across the sand.

It's a pretty swift transition from...

this gift of a panther
staring right at me

to this heartbreak
of seeing this little fella just

barely walk across this clearing.

This picture right here...
kills me.

His mother's within reach and you
can see him connecting to her and...

pulling himself closer.
Getting back up and struggling on.

And then it all made sense.
This is why that mother panther

walked down that road
so slowly for 30 minutes

because she was waiting
for her injured kitten to keep up.

Biologists have announced that
this has happened and been observed

in eight different cases
around southwest Florida.

It's probably caused by us.

Something that we've put out
into nature.

We're following up on a story we
first brought you yesterday

about new video showing a mysterious
health problem affecting Florida panthers.

The Florida Fish
and Wildlife Conservation Commission

recently released
the footage from trail cameras

that show the endangered cats stumbling

and now investigators are working
to figure out just why.

So, Lara, I'm going to go grab
the vaccines, if you're good.

I think we're good.

My thought process is they likely were
exposed to a milder exposure or dose

of whatever is causing this,
which we still don't know.

and hopefully, they'll remain static and
there'll be no progression.

So that bit of sign that we see is
hopefully all we'll see in these guys.

- This one are all right?
- Yeah.

I'm so glad
that they are not so badly affected.

That kitten that you got photos
of was the most severely affected.

Well, maybe these guys are going
to give you some answers.

When you have an animal isolated,
one big storm,

one new disease can bring this cat
back to brink of extinction.

This is why Babs is so important
to the future of her species.

What the panthers need, and the whole
ecosystem needs the lifeline to the North.

We are probably seven months
of rehab now.

I think he was June of last year
so we're just about seven months.

And today we're releasing him.

We moved him from the small enclosure
to a larger one which is about 11 acres

and after transition of a few small
items like armadillo-sized animals,

raccoons he could catch, he was
offered live deer in that enclosure.

And it wasn't until he kind of
"went missing" off of camera

for a few days,
the introduction of the deer

that we knew he was doing
what he needed to do.

He had hunted the deer, killed it,
and was feeding on it.

It really was sort of the end point for us
realizing that he was ready to go.

All right. Showtime.

When we're looking at decisions
in terms of where we release Tres,

You're looking at a map, saying my
options are not what they should be.

Where do I enough green space that's truly
wild to put a wild animal back into it?

High five on that one. Good job.

- Walking...
- Well done.

That was awesome.

- Great, right?
- Yeah.

- That's awesome. Right over the top.
- He is fast.

Everything is so
completely interconnected.

We've got to be aware of it
or those lands won't be there.

You can't have wildlife
if they have nowhere to live.

Got a lot of game here already.

Telling me they're mad at me
because they tore my little feeder up

and got all the corn out of it.

Set our feeder up just to find out
what's coming in, what's going on,

and we got a few old hogs
sneaking in here

but mostly just deer and cranes.
And whooping cranes love corn.

Just an old muddy camera.

I'm seeing if I've got any panthers
or bears on it so I can show Carlton

how to take a real picture without having
to spend all that money.

And I've even got some
high-tech stuff that I found.

I don't know if you can see my stick.

That's a stick there to keep it leveled
up because the tree leans a little bit.

There's only so many pieces
of unspoiled paradise left, you know.

You know they get you
squeezed down to a certain spot,

it really ain't worth your time
and effort to farm.

It's hard to believe this pasture
is going to be covered in rooftops.

What's our plan today?

We slip out here around these
heifers and move them,

put 'em in a new field. We're going to
rotate them,

and move them over to another pasture.

Always got me when I see development
going on I look, and I say,

"That will never be productive
for agriculture again."

But you've got to leave places
for people to farm.

You've got to leave areas
for these wildlife.

If you was to put a big road
through the middle,

it may entice folks to say,

"Look at all this land, here,
they're doing nothing with

but have a few cows
or they're farming.

You know we can pick that up
fairly cheap."

Land went from $2500 an acre

to $20,000 an acre
within six to eight months.

We had people coming here buying big
tracts of land. 20,000 bucks an acre.

There's no way I can put enough cows
on it, farm crops,

and even plant some marijuana
on the edges and pay for this thing.

But yet these people are coming here
and spending all that money.

I talked to them guys I said,

"Man, how in the world
do you recoup your money back."

And the guy told me,
"Well, you're looking at it wrong.

You're looking
at what the land can produce.

I'm looking at how many houses
can I put on that acre?"

I don't know the answer
to it to be honest with you.

I know that they're not spending a million
dollars to buy a piece of land to preserve

a farmer what he does for a living

but they'll spend that money
on that cat.

But if me and that cat can get along,
we all benefit from that.

Yo, man. Come here, buddy.
What are you doing?

We need to protect them
as much as we can

because if we've got habitat for them
that leaves habitat for us.

So I had actually gotten
to be kind of numb almost.

It had been so many months
of not getting anything

and I see an alert pop up on my phone.

Here's another empty photo, or a pig, or something.

And I open it up and it's this
lo-res picture that looks like her.

Okay, we're going to walk
in this trail to where my camera is.

She was just here like two hours ago.

Just trying to see if there's tracks.
There's a lot of vegetation on the ground.

So I got your text
at like 6:15 this morning.

Sorry. I got a little excited.
He came through on the tenth.

So the male was here
just a couple days before.

- Yup. See.
- Getting close.

Oh, yeah,
I figured we'd find one of these.

- If she came across this scrape.
- She'd probably come by and sniff it.

She'd check it out. That's exciting.

- It's like 20 feet from the camera so.
- Yeah.

- That's a good spot they chose.
- Yup.

Cameras going. That's a good thing.

The question is which direction
was the camera facing?

Yeah. System is go.

Five hundred
and sixty-one beam breaks.

This thing has been knocked

but it didn't break the alignment enough
to where it stopped working.

But here's to hoping.
Yeah, this camera is...

pretty much perfectly composed for a
picture of the oak canopy above us.

There's no chance it'd be able
to get a picture of an animal

unless it was standing above it
looking down.

The question is
when did it get knocked?

And when did the panthers come?
Sky, sky, sky on the 19th.

Wouldn't it be nice
if she had walked over it?

Would've been nice if the cows hadn't
knocked this camera.

Because that was the first time,
and there's the culprit right there.

Big old floppy ears on that Angus.

This is where
I'm starting to get pretty anxious.

We just had about 200 pictures of cows
but we're back to a level horizon.

There's a panther. There's a
panther at 3:30 in the morning.

It's her.
No.

It's a kitten it's got spots.
No. That's a panther kitten.

Oh, my gosh.

- And look, look. Look behind her.
Oh, my God.

Right there.
- That's two kittens.

Oh, dude.
- Look, they're sniffing the scrape.

Look at her face.
She does look like an annoyed mom.

Oh, dude.

If one or both of these are females,
like, that's just even a bigger deal.

- Here's to hoping these are females.
- Yes.

This right here, is showing you a picture
of the first verified female

north of the river in 43 years but now
she's got two kittens behind her.

What are they sniffing?

They're sniffing the scrape of a male
panther that's been up here for awhile.

Yeah. So we've got a Florida panther family.

We've got the future.
This is a big deal.

Nature is a great teacher.
And the animals, the plants, the water,

they're part of nature's way
of teaching you.

The animals,
they don't see those lines.

Those divisions that are created.
These imaginary lines.

For them,
they still see that system connected

and they are trying to get
to the areas that they knew.

It's still there.
That knowledge is there somewhere.

It's waiting for you to bring it back
forward to the present.

There is that possibility to have those
corridors throughout the United States.

You guys ready to see my first story
in National Geographic magazine?

Sure.
That's awesome.

How in the world
did you take that picture?

That's a camera trap.

That panther, that's a mommy panther
with three kittens.

- What's that remind you of?
- Mommy and the three of us.

A bill to be entitled an "Act
Relating to the Protection of Ecosystems."

Thank you Mr. Speaker.
This is the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act.

Have all members voted?
Have all members voted?

The clerk will lock the machine
and announce the vote.

One hundred and fifteen yeas
and zero nays, Mr. Speaker.

The bill passes.

The panther is showing us
that it's not too late.

It's showing us that these remnants
of nature can still be reconnected.

And if we do that, there's no limit

to the scale of life and balance we can
bring back across this entire continent.

To see the way this story can unify
and bring people together,

I have tremendous hope
of what wildlife corridors can do

to bring people together
across the entirety of this country.