The Florida panther could go extinct if this toll road is built, emails say

[flamingdem]

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-bz-florida-toll-roads-opponents-20191205-wv545s7xirfhloe3wi5zqmaa5q-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1AOfhYDgXh6wrt-3UptEjLGb3K03WgBAfeF2jX8BDb0xnu2izNO5W5A-k

One of the controversial toll roads approved by the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis this year would be a “disaster” for the Florida panther and potentially render the species extinct, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist wrote this year in a candid email to his supervisor.

The road, which is proposed to run from Polk to Collier counties and has been referred to as the Heartland Parkway, would run through the heart of some of the last remaining panther habitat and cause more of the big cats to be killed by cars, the biologist wrote.

Compounding the disaster, he wrote, is that the project’s suburban sprawl would swallow even more of the panther’s dwindling habitat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "has serious, serious concerns about the heartland expressway and likely the two other corridors should this legislative proposal go forward,” wrote John Wrublik, a biologist and transportation specialist in the agency’s Vero Beach office, in March. “This project would have very serious impacts on the Florida panther (basically a disaster for the panther).”

Wrublik also wrote that the road, which would run from Collier to Polk counties, would “potentially jeopardize the species.”

In environmental speak, “jeopardy” is a legal term that means one thing: extinction.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Maybe a corridor for wildlife, such as in the border area of Canada and the US, where migration...

occurs (I think for bears, etc.) back and forth. That is, tunnels underneath the highways, overpasses over the highway to allow wildlife safer means of traveling.