Behind the Scenes: Documenting the Elusive Florida Panther | National Geographic

Foreign and that's how you test. I don't think I had any idea what I was getting into at the beginning of this project. I've only seen a Florida panther twice with my own eyes. The animals that we're trying to film and photograph are super elusive. There's very little chance of seeing one with a camera in my hands to film it in real time.

So, by using camera traps, we're able to capture photographs and video the world has never seen. To get to these places, sometimes we're waiting waist-deep through a swamp. Some places, you're deep into the wilderness where you're going by truck in an ATV and then hiking to get into these really remote places. Other times, you're getting out of your truck on the side of the highway, going through a chain link and barbed wire fence, and setting up a camera to underpass right there beneath the semis and thousands of cars whizzing by every day.

We've had cameras burned by wildfire, drowned by hurricanes, toppled by black bears, stolen by poachers, shot by a hunter, or an angry landowner. Oh, oh, that's a bullet! That's it, that's the bullet, I think. And it's taken years to get these images. When people open up the magazine and they see that Florida panther jumping off the page, they might not know how difficult it was to capture that image.

When I stuck my pole out and about waist-deep in water, a big alligator came up and nailed me on the hand, knocking me backward. Pretty sure a case of mistaken identity; this Gator wasn't trying to eat me. But it's a reminder, out here, we're in these swamps all the time, and you can get a little bit cavalier and forget that we're entering somebody else's world, and it's a really wild place still.

In some cases, it's taken me more than two years, and in one case, five years, to capture the photograph that has the elements for the pages of National Geographic magazine. What this project has given to me is a chance to spend lots of time in places like this. This has been a passport to discover some of the most amazing places I have ever been.

It still blows my mind that these places still exist and we still have a chance to save them. I know why I'm so sad is because we love this place so much, and I feel lucky that I get to take volunteers and people out here to show it to them. But to me, that's still not enough; like, I wish I could show everyone how special this place is.

You know, I end up falling in love with these places, and I know it's something—it becomes like part of you, in a way. And then it's like turning a chapter. When we take a system out, it takes weeks to find the spot, set up the camera, and it'll take about two hours to pack it up and carry it away. So, and Sunday is the end of our permit into the project here, so I don't want to leave. [Music]