Florida conservation officials confirmed that a female panther has crossed a river, which could be a big deal for species to survive.

Florida panthers have been listed as endangered species. Around 200 of the large cats live in south Florida, in an area which is less than 5 percent of their original range. If the animal needs to thrive, it needs to expand its territory and breed.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has been planning for a long-term recovery program for the panther along with a guide for the residents about  Living with Panthers based on these objectives.

Male panthers had shown up north of the Caloosahatchee over the decades. But, there's been a problem  since 1973 that there had been no female panthers.

And without female panthers on the north side of the river, the breeding population did not expand.

The agencies announced on Monday that "The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Panther Team has already collected strong evidence of a female Florida panther that has finally crossed the Caloosahatchee River,"

Biologists discovered a small panther last year , hopefully a female in photos taken by an automatic game camera set up north of the river. Biologists had set up additional cameras this summer, and collected more pictures of the panther in question. But they still not confirmed if it was a female.

By Prakriti Neogi