The endangered Florida panther, running out of room to prowl as its numbers rebound, may find its best chance at survival is a program to pay distrustful ranchers to protect what remains of its habitat.

 

The payment plan proposed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service has never been tried before on a large scale with a wide-ranging predator, officials say.

 

Landowners could receive $22 per acre to maintain the cattle pastures and wooded scrub increasingly critical as panther terrain.

 

A growing number of panthers are hemmed into a shrinking corner of south-west Florida, where their ability to roam is threatened by ever expanding subdivisions and highways.

 

Florida panther numbers have more than tripled in recent decades to between 100 and 180, according to government estimates. But state officials say more than twice as many would be needed, in multiple populations, before the species could be downgraded on the endangered list.

 

Seventeen panthers already have died this year, mostly hit by cars, putting the year on track to be one of the deadliest for the species in recent history, according to state records.

 

The deaths exacerbate the struggles that panther advocates face in building on past successes. The rebound came after eight Texas pumas were introduced in 1995 to strengthen the Florida panther's genetics. The Florida panther is the last subspecies of puma surviving in the eastern United States.

 

Continuing the progress requires help from private landowners, say wildlife officials, acknowledging that many ranchers resent the official state animal, which can prey on their livestock.

 

It's unclear how the payments, yet unfunded, would affect other federal farm bill programs, as well as state and private conservation efforts.

 

Wildlife officials would start with a three-year pilot project covering 10% of the desirable terrain in private hands, at a total cost of about $1.5m.

 

But the money would not stop landowners from selling out to development in another decade or two. Conservation groups call the short-term horizon a concern.