Trail cameras help protect Florida panthers as I-4 wildlife overpass takes shape

Deep in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest, a network of trail cameras is documenting the wildlife moving through a landscape increasingly intersected by roads and development.

For the past three years, ZooTampa at Lowry Park and the nonprofit fStop Foundation have worked together to monitor those cameras, collecting data intended to help planners decide where roads, buildings and wildlife crossings should be placed.

The collaboration has taken on added significance as work advances on Florida’s first wildlife overpass, which is being built above Interstate 4 near Lakeland and is scheduled to open in 2027. Cameras deployed around the project will help researchers track how panthers and other animals move through the area.

The overpass could offer a safer route across one of Central Florida’s busiest highways for the endangered Florida panther, whose survival is threatened in large part by vehicle collisions.

An estimated 120 to 230 Florida panthers remain in the wild, according to ZooTampa. State wildlife officials documented 36 panther deaths in 2024, the highest annual toll since 2016. Eleven panthers have been killed by vehicles so far this year, the zoo says.

The Plantation-based fStop Foundation operates more than 160 cameras across Florida and within the state’s wildlife corridor. ZooTampa employees serve as field technicians in the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest, maintaining equipment and reviewing the images it captures.

“Through this partnership, both organizations have benefited from each other’s knowledge, insights, observations and commitment to the shared cause of protecting the Florida panther for future generations,” Tiffany Burns, ZooTampa’s senior director of animal programs, says in a release.

ZooTampa’s team recorded its first panther on the cameras in May 2024 and has since documented several of the endangered cats. The cameras have also captured bears, bobcats, coyotes, deer, river otters, sandhill cranes and other wildlife.

While servicing the equipment, team members have encountered gopher tortoises, armadillos, caracaras and a bald eagle, among other species.

The observations provide more than striking wildlife footage. By showing which animals use particular areas and how they travel through the forest, the cameras can help identify important habitat connections and potential collision points.

“Grateful for a conservation partner who brings expertise, passion and boots-on-the-ground support as our field techs on the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest,” fStop Foundation President William Freund said in a statement.

The partnership comes as Florida’s rapid growth places added pressure on natural habitats. Wildlife crossings, fencing and connected conservation lands can help animals move between fragmented habitats without entering heavily traveled roads.

Officials urged motorists traveling through panther habitat to slow down and remain alert, particularly around dawn, dusk and nighttime, when the animals may be more difficult to see. Sightings of injured, sick or dead panthers can be reported to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922.