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Handbook
Freshwater Marshes
- Willows
- Cattails
- Sedges
- Bullrushes
- Pondweed
- Waterlillies
- Eelgrass
The largest freshwater marsh within the panther's range is the Everglades. Sawgrass stretches as far as the eye can see interrupted only be occasional hardwood hammocks. The soils are acidic peat and marshes are typically wet about 250 days per year. Flying over the Everglades, Game Commission biologist Chris Belden looked down to see a panther swimming through sawgrass between hardwood hammocks (Alvarez 1993). Freshwater marshes support flocks of wading birds as well as alligators and fish. During the summer, marshes are important foraging sites for white-tailed deer and wild hogs. Natural light ground fires are started by lightning in the dry season and keep bushes and trees from growing.
American Alligator
The American alligator is found in the southeastern United States and is distinguished from the crocodile by its short, blunt, and rounded snout. Alligators also live in China, but they not are nearly as big as their American cousins.
On very rare occasions panthers in the Everglades have eaten alligators, probably because of lack of more suitable prey.
Alligators create holes in marshes which fill with water and become important habitat for other organisms, especially during droughts. The alligator was threatened with extinction from hunting during the 1960s, but with restrictions on hunting, the alligator population has rebounded.
White-tailed Deer
White-tailed deer are graceful, swift, and agile. They can run over 48 kilometers per hour on open range and can bound over 2-meter fences from a standstill. They were named for their habit of lifting their tails like flags, flashing the white underside, when they run.
As the most consistently found large prey item, white-tailed deer are critical to the health and survival of the Florida panther.
Deer are herbivores and are most abundant along the edges of forests where cover and forage are available. In southwest Florida, marsh vegetation is also an important component of their diet. They feed on new shoots of many types of trees and shrubs as well as on leaves and twigs. They also eat acorns, fruits, berries, and even mushrooms. They eat the bark of several types of trees, scraping it with their bottom incisors. They generally feed around dusk and dawn and rest during the day in thickets or in patches of dense tall grass.
Deer have excellent eyesight and hearing and a keen sense of smell. Because they don't eat meat, deer lack upper incisor and canine teeth.
Males (called bucks) grow antlers each spring and shed them each winter. Growing antlers look like they are covered with velvet. The size of antlers and the number of points is determined by nutrition and genetics. Young deer (less than 3) and older deer (older than 8) have fewer points and smaller racks than deer in their prime (3-8). Biologists think this is a result of physical condition as well as genetics (McCown: personal communication).
Characteristic Animals
Birds:
Canvasback duck, coot, great egret, limpkin, little blue heron, northern harrier, osprey, rail, red-winged blackbird, sandhill crane, endangered snail kite, white ibis, endangered wood stork.
Mammals:
Florida water rat, marsh rabbit, white-tailed deer.
Reptiles and Amphibians:
American alligator, black swamp snake, bluegill, Florida banded water snake, green water snake, killifish, leopard frog, little grass frog, mosquito fish, mud turtle, ornate chorus frog, pig frog, sunfish, tree frog.
Invertebrates:
Apple snail.
Characteristic Plants
Arrowhead, bladderwort, bulrushes, buttonbush, cattail, cordgrass, eelgrass, fire flag, maidencane, muhly grass, pickerelweed, pondweed, redroot, sand cordgrass, sawgrass, southern naiad, spatterdock, sphagnum moss, spikerush, St. John's wort, swamp hibiscus, Virginia chain fern, wax myrtle, white-top sedge, white water lily, willows, yellow-eyed grass and yellow lotus.