K-385 is the daughter of FP-151, born on December 16, 2012. She weighed 3 pounds, 6 ounces on January 2, 2013.
We collared FP-240 on February 18, 2015. She weighed 78 pounds.
At the time of her capture we were looking for FP-187 to re-collar him. FP-187 managed to get away. John Kellam made this photograph of them together.
FP-240 denned in May of 2015. In June we marked three kittens. K-443 a daughter and two sons, K-444 and K-445. Their father is probably FP-187
K-443, K-444, and K-445 playing at their den.
FP-240 nursing her kittens
FP-240 was killed by another panther on August 8, 2015.
Her satellite collar emailed a mortality warning at 5 AM on Sunday, August 9, 2015 The collar was programmed to send a mortality message when the collar hadn’t moved for 8 hours, the lowest number of hours possible to program.
On Monday, August 10, 2015 we checked the location by helicopter prior to the start of our scheduled deer survey. We observed a large area with flattened vegetation at the mortality coordinate and saw the dead panther at the edge of the upland 40 meters north of the flattened vegetation. We briefly checked the panther and saw that she had decomposed past the point at which collection of the organs may have been beneficial. As per protocol, we also needed to have law enforcement examine the site for human involvement.
On Monday afternoon, we returned to the site by swamp buggy. The PF-240 was no longer at the edge of the upland, so we used telemetry and was found her in denser vegetation 90 meters from where we had seen her that morning.
Hoping to learn something about the fate of her three kittens, we deployed 3 live traps baited with venison and 5 trail cameras around FP240. We checked these the next day and had photos of 2 opossums feeding on FP240 and 2 opossums in the traps. No images of kittens or another panther were obtained. We closed the traps but reset the cameras and got photos of an opossum the next night.
On Wednesday August 12, Deborah Jansen retrieved the remains of FP240 and cameras.