New panther specialty license plate available
The “Protect the Panther” Florida specialty license plate underwent a photogenic makeover this year and is now available.
The new plate marks the third design since its inception in 1991. It now features a photo taken by Carlton Ward Jr. in 2018 showing a female panther and her kitten.
Florida panthers are listed as endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act with only an estimated 120-230 adult panthers left in the wild, mostly in Southwest Florida, according to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The new plate design shows the first female panther documented north of Southwest Florida’s Caloosahatchee River since 1973, according to an FWC press release. She was also the first known to have had kittens north of the river in more than 40 years.
The river continues to be an obstacle for panthers’ northward movement, which has contributed to their population challenges. Most are south of Lake Okeechobee, and the river and canal stretches from its mouth near Fort Myers to the lake in the middle of the state.
Ward was featured in the documentary film “Path of the Panther,” which premiered at the 2022 Florida Film Festival and is now available to stream on Hulu and Disney+. Ward is an eighth-generation Floridian who founded the Florida Wildlife Corridor project in 2010.
FWC worked with Ward on the final plate design, which is now available at county tax collectors’ offices or from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Fees from the annual $25 tag registration go to the Florida Panther Research and Management Trust Fund to help panther research, rescue and conservation activities.
The FWC said the funds over the last three decades have paid almost all aspects of the FWC’s panther-related efforts.
The previous design had been in place since 1993, featuring an illustrated closeup of a panther head. The original design that came when the plate debuted on Oct. 1, 1991, showed an illustrated head-on view of a full-size panther staring forward through the grass.
The panther plate had dropped off in registrations in the last decade, but is still ranked 16th out of more than 120 available specialty tags with 38,448 registered plates as of December 2023. It had more than 60,000 registrations in 2012, according to FLHSMV records.
The most popular specialty tag now is the Endless Summer surfing plate with 133,106 registrations as of December followed by Helping Sea Turtles Survive with 107,946, the University of Florida with 92,387, Miami Heat with 75,206 and Florida State University with 69,607.
Statewide, there are 2,117,546 registered tags, up from 1,368,180 on January 1, 2012.