A critical habitat should be set up by the federal government for the Florida Panther, according to U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Florida. The congressman this week called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate such a habitat for the endangered species following the 30th automobile-related panther death in 2015 alone. “Each year, the Florida panther population continues to shrink in size as more big cats are hit and killed by cars because they lack a safe habitat,” Buchanan said. “Although these panthers are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, they face extinction because they have no protected area to live and repopulate.”

The Florida Panther was among the 14 mammals originally put on the federal endangered species list in 1967, but there has never been a critical habitat established. Tom Mackenzie, spokesman for the Southeast Region for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said there may be a variety of reasons a habitat does not get set up for a species. Establishing such a habitat isn’t necessarily designating a refuge, and could simply set up protections in an environment with the natural resources needed by the animal in order to survive. Critical habitats are set up in those instances where it would benefit the survival of the species to do so, Mackenzie said. In the case of the panther, such a designation has proved difficult because the animal is a wide-ranging habitat generalist  and it would take enormous resources to designate a refuge, impacting private land owners and government entities. That also would take away limited resources deemed higher priority actions needed to recover the panther, including finding ways to expand the panther population in South and Central Florida.

Earlier this month, Buchanan and a bipartisan group of Florida congressman sent a letter to President Barack Obama, copying Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell, calling for a critical habitat to be created. News of the death of a 1-year-old panther last week led Buchanan, co-chair of the Florida Congressional Delegation, to renew that call. “We don’t get a second chance once a species becomes extinct,” Buchanan said.