Yuma, with his first kill of the day

Another highlight of the Wildlife Park in Homosassa Springs was the Florida panther. Prior to this, I had never seen a live one. The Wildlife Park has two resident panthers, both males rescued as infants. They can’t be kept in the same enclosure, so the park rotates them—one is on display in the main enclosure while the other is in R&R behind the scenes. On the day we were there, Yuma was up to bat.

When we arrived at the panther enclosure, we couldn’t find him. We asked a nearby volunteer who told us that the volunteers hadn’t been able to locate him all morning. The enclosure is not large. As we were chatting, we scanned the proximity. Suddenly a panther leaped out of the bushes in front of us and pounced on a turkey vulture that had just landed twenty feet away. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my first exposure to a Florida panther!

The volunteer I was talking to was shocked. In her twenty years at the Wildlife Park, she had never seen either panther attempt to catch any of the birds who are free to come and go in the roofless enclosure. (The park has a sprinkler system to discourage birds from landing in certain enclosures. It wasn’t engaged in the panther enclosure that morning, however.) Yuma carried the vulture into his super-secret hiding place in the bushes and proceeded to “play” with his kill for a bit. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it, never having had to kill to eat. Good to know the hunting instinct is still alive and well!

Yuma, in his super-secret hiding place, watching a turkey vulture

Marcus and I walked away to see some of the other exhibits, but wandered back to the panther enclosure after twenty minutes or so. We could see Yuma, still in the bushes, and still admiring his handiwork, when suddenly he leaped out and snagged another vulture, right out of mid-air this time! The poor, unsuspecting bird was about six feet from landing when Yuma snagged him.

Yikes! A second kill!

Given our track record for witnessing panther bird-strikes, we decided that perhaps, in the interest of preserving the local vulture population, we should stop visiting the exhibit! On to the Wildlife Encounter….