As deaths of endangered panthers mount, 3 kittens spotted in forest

As conservationists worry over the fate of the highly endangered Florida panther , state officials have confirmed three kittens have been born and are currently living in the Okaloacoochie Slough State Forest.

All three kittens are part of one litter, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said , and were born earlier in August. The litter includes one male kitten and two female kittens.

These are the only births that the commission has documented this year, according to its website. The commission tracks all kitten births by adult female panthers wearing radio collars, so there may have been other, unrecorded kittens born in 2024.

Florida panthers are considered highly endangered, with just between 120 to 230 adult panthers alive in the state, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection . The animals once lived across the Southeast, but now live mostly in Florida along the Gulf of Mexico. The species' population has been decimated primarily by hunting, according to the National Wildlife Federation, and remains susceptible to low genetic diversity, illnesses and habitat loss.

In Florida, one of the greatest threats is cars and other vehicles. Eighteen Florida panthers have been killed so far in 2024, and 14 involved vehicles. Another panther was killed by ia train. The other three causes of death are listed as "unknown."

"We have a growing human population and the infrastructure, the roads, the buildings, the higher traffic and higher speeds ... all of that is happening right in the heart of the last remaining occupied habitat for the Florida panther," said Elise Bennett, the Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity , in an interview with CBS News earlier this year . "They've been kind of cornered into this little area of Southwest Florida, and that's where we see the majority of these roadkills."