#130 Black Panthers

In a few more days, I made another trip to the Lake Butler Game Management Area. On this two and a half hour drive, I saw two deer, two rabbits, and a cottonmouth. I watched the moccasin try to catch a big frog. With a mighty leap, the frog jumped out of the water hole and into the brush. There was no following by the snake. Once I tired of scouting, it took twenty minutes of driving on the sand roads before I got to a hard-top road. I had begun to wonder if I would ever find one. Having come from crowded southeast Virginia, I was not used to the long, uninhabited areas you could still find in some parts of Florida. In spite of the four-wheel drive, I almost got bogged down by the deep sand several times. To be fair to the Ford F-150, I was not using the special low-speed four-wheel drive which I am sure could have gotten me out of any sand. Still, I thought I had seen very little game for almost three hours of driving and believed that attested to the overwhelming presence of pine trees, armadillos, fire ants, and coyotes. Surely, starvation would be the plight for a panther in this area. This was nothing like the experience I had on the Ecofina River where I may have seen a black panther along the side of the road. But the Ecofina River was three hours of driving away. To Be Continued. Peter Nickerson at peternickerson12@yahoo.com or much better, 352-359-0849.