grindtv.com reported 1st: A woman on an early morning nature walk at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, Florida, found herself with nowhere to hide when she suddenly came face to face with a fast-approaching Florida panther on a boardwalk.Video Link
With video rolling, Tina Dorschel of Madison, Wisconsin, saw it coming in the distance and somehow managed to keep her camera focused on the endangered Florida panther as it sped by.
Dorschel subsequently posted the video publicly on Facebook, where the Naples Daily News reported it going viral. She added the caveat “curse word at the end,” which probably wouldn’t have come as a surprise to most:
Dorschel wrote that she had already seen a gator, a snake, frogs and pretty birds before “this unexpected encounter.”
The Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a National Audubon Society sanctuary in southwest Florida that features 17 square miles of wetland with a 1.9-mile boardwalk. How far along Dorschel was on the boardwalk is uncertain, but far enough where seeking refuge was just not possible.
“This gorgeous Florida panther seems to have unexpectedly found himself cornered while traveling around a corner on the boardwalk—and quickly sped up to get away,” the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary wrote on its Facebook page. “Panthers are shy creatures and this kind of encounter was a lucky and extremely rare experience.”
Talking to Mashable, Shawn E. Clem, a research manager for the southwest region of the National Audubon Society, called the close encounter “highly unusual.”
“I think anytime you go into a natural environment, you’re gonna encounter nature, and I think that what we saw from the panther’s behavior was actually a really good sign that the panther was afraid of the situation—they don’t want to be around people,” Clem told Mashable.
And certainly Dorschel didn’t want to be around the Florida panther.