A male Florida panther, estimated to be 2 to 3 years old, was killed by a vehicle July 1 on Interstate 75 in Wesley Chapel, ...

A rare animal was found dead in an unexpected location on a Florida highway outside the endangered species’ normal habitat. A ...

Pasco County isn’t on the FWC’s map of known occurrences of the species, as most Florida panthers live in the southwest part of the state, south of Lake Okeechobee.

It’s the first documented death of the Florida panther in Pasco County, north of Tampa, since record-keeping began in 2014, according to the Panther Pulse database.