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Journal Article Shopping Centers as Panther Habitat: Inferring Animal Locations from Models(2004) Maehr, David S.; Larkin, Jeffery L.; Cox, John J."A recent model of Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) habitat erred in arbitrarily creating buffers around radio locations collected during daylight hours on the assumption that study animals were only at rest during these times. The buffers generated by this method likely cause an overestimation of the amounts and kinds of habitats that are used by the panther. This, and other errors, could lead to the impression that unfragmented forest cover is unimportant to panther conservation, and could encourage inaccurate characterizations of panther habitat. Previous 24-hour monitoring of activity and activity readings made during routine telemetry flights indicate that high levels of activity occur in the early morning hours. Literature on the behavior of the species does not support the creation of large buffers around telemetry locations to compensate for the lack of nighttime telemetry data. A thorough examination of ongoing studies that use global positioning systems may help calibrate future Florida panther habitat models."Journal Article Toward a Panther-centered View of the Forests of South Florida(2000) Kerkhoff, Andrew J.; Milne, Bruce T.; Maehr, David S."Anthropogenic habitat degradation and loss is the single largest threat to the endangered Florida panther, Puma concolor coryi. Conservation of the subspecies must be undertaken on the scale of the entire landscape. Thus, a view of the forested landscape of South Florida must be developed that is meaningful with reference to the panther. We approach this problem by analyzing the spatial interactions of panthers and forests at multiple scales. We apply tools derived from fractal geometry to the analysis of 12 years of telemetry observations of panthers and remotely sensed forest cover imagery. A fractal characterization extends conventional scale-dependent measures of forest density and relates intuitively to panther ecology. To move toward a panther-centered view of the forests of South Florida, we adopt a scale-dependent notion of association and compare the density of forest cover associated with panther locations to that of the forest at large. Panthers interact with forest cover over a wide range of scales, consistently selecting denser than average forest areas. We discuss landscape-scale management of the panther in light of our findings and propose a protocol for mapping forest cover with reference to the panther at multiple scales as a mangement tool for habitat assessment."