LANDSCAPE FEATURES AND PANTHERS IN FLORIDA

We used a geographic information system (GIS) to document spatial asso ciations of Florida panthers, land cover, and other geographical featu res. Panther radio locations (n = 14,548) occurred in hardwood hammock : mixed hardwood swamp, and cypress swamp in greater proportion than i n randomly positioned points (n = 8500). Panther radio locations occur red less frequently in agricultural, barren, and shrub and brush land cover. Panther home ranges consisted of a combination of preferred and avoided cover types, including freshwater marsh, cypress swamp, hardw ood swamp, and agricultural land. These cover types accounted for 62% of the area in panther home ranges. We used correlation and discrimina nt function analyses to assess the potential importance of 20 landscap e features. These panther locations were effectively distinguished fro m random points using four landscape variables: (1) the size of a cont iguous patch of preferred land cover; (2) the proximity to preferred l and cover; (3) the diversity of three preferred cover types within a w indow 120 X 120 m, and (4) the matrix within which preferred cover typ es occurred Eighty-three percent of the panther locations and 81.9% of the random points were correctly classified based on a linear model c onstructed using these four variables. Large, contiguous areas of pref erred land-cover types were especially important because 96% of all pa nther locations occurred within 90 m of preferred land cover. The aver age preferred forest patch size that was used by these panthers was 20 ,816 ha, and a regression equation suggests that patches larger than 5 00 ha are important. Maps of panther habitat suitability were develope d using coefficients derived from discriminant analysis. Large areas o f suitable land cover that are heavily used by panthers occur on priva te ranches covering 3606 km(2). Conservation of preferred habitat on t hese private lands is essential to maintaining a free-ranging populati on of panthers in southwest Florida.