Where there is death in the Big Cypress, there is also hope for life. Panther watchers are currently tracking three separate litters of healthy kittens-and hoping that enough of them will survive to carry on the species.

Watering down of rules throws sharks to wolves December 24, 1992 One of the great indoor sports for Floridians is browsing our souvenir shops, to see what tourists are buying.

Once I found a shark embryo in a jar. No joke: A store in Key West had an entire shelf of real shark embryos, bottled like dill pickles. This was promoted as a clever memento of one's tropical vacation.

These days you won't find so many baby sharks, on land or sea. We've done quite a job of slaughtering them.

Some of the killing occurs in the name of sport, because shark are fine game fish. Ernest Hemingway sometimes machine-gunned his initials into their heads. As a kid, I killed a few myself, though not so exuberantly.

In those days we never dreamed the ocean would run out of sharks, but that's what is happening. The big money is in the fins, which are sold in Asia for expensive sharkfin soup.

It's an obscene reason to annihilate the planet's most important wild predator. Without sharks, the complex ecology of the sea will go haywire. This year Florida adopted a good law stopping commercial shark fishing within the three-mile state waters. It also limited the sharks taken by recreational anglers to one per day. (Some days, you'd be lucky to see that many.) The U.S. government became so alarmed by the decline of sharks that it proposed similar restrictions in national waters, up to 200 miles offsh.o.r.e. It also sought to ban the barbaric practice of "finning"-hacking the fins off live sharks and tossing their maimed bodies overboard.

Weeks before the shark rules were to become law, a campaigning-President Bush announced a 9o-day moratorium on all new federal regulations. Now, with the election over, the National Marine Fisheries Service has presented a revised shark plan, which goes into effect in January. It's not nearly as tough as the original.

"An unmitigated disaster," says Dr. Sam Gruber, a University of Miami biologist who's been studying sharks since 1960.

Though live finning is outlawed, the new guidelines still allow commercial fishermen to take 2,436 metric tons of coastal sharks annually-lemon, bull, tiger, nurse and several other species. Each recreational boat can kill four.

"It's a joke," says Gruber. "It legalizes the wholesale slaughter of these things, for no reason."

The fisheries service insists the regulations will reduce the harvest enough that shark populations will resurge. Some marine biologists are skeptical. Unlike most fish, sharks take years to mature, and reproduce in small numbers. It worked for 4 million centuries, but not so well in the last decade.

Gruber has watched the change. In 1986, he began studying the life cycles of 140 lemon sharks in a secluded bight near No Name Key. The next year, only 90 of the sharks remained. By 1989, all were gone.

Divers and charter captains report similar observations along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Some commercial boats have gone out of business or moved to North Carolina, where sharks migrate in concentrations along the continental shelf.

Sure, sharks have a PR problem. b.u.mblebees kill more humans, but sharks get the bad press. And TV is always a sucker for dockside footage of a dead Great White, rotting ferociously in the sun.

Scary or not, sharks play a critical role in keeping the seas bountiful. It's not easy to kill off a creature that's survived 400 million years, but we've found a way. The rich folk do like their soup.

Meanwhile, I'm steering clear of tourist shops, in case somebody gets the bright idea for manatee steak.

A regular at saloon, popularity killed her April 6, 1995 "El Presidente" died last week. Bullet in the head.

Those who loved her might have loved her too well.

El Presidente was an alligator who lived by the Last Chance Saloon in Florida City. She was eight feet long, half-blind, a favorite with bar patrons.

They thought she was a male, hence the nickname. Attempts at gender verification were deemed unwise.

Laura Dryer, who runs the Last Chance, says El Presidente was a fixture for 12 years. Never bothered anybody but the garfish.

Wildlife officers say she had become a threat because people came to feed her in the ca.n.a.l, which flanks busy U.S. 1. They feared a tourist or small child would tumble down the bank and get chomped.

Two citizen complaints were filed with the state Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission. Lawmen visited the scene.The verdict: El Presidente had to go.

"It met every criteria for a dangerous nuisance alligator," says Todd Hardwick, the man a.s.signed to the capture. "It was 10 feet from U.S. 1, and a few feet from a bar where people were drinking."

One-eyed alligators and bleary-eyed partiers probably ought not to commingle, but through the years El Presidente and her fond admirers had no problems.

However, once branded a "nuisance," she was doomed. In gator-rich Florida, only the small ones are relocated. The large ones are harvested, because transfers are costly and often fruitless.

Recently a beloved alligator named Grandpa, in a rare clemency, was moved from Big Pine Key to h.o.m.osa.s.sa Springs. Bitten and abused by resident gators, Grandpa soon died.

So El Presidente received the customary sentence: death.

Hardwick, well-known capturer and rescuer of wild critters, holds the state trapper license for Dade and Monroe. He and two a.s.sistants got the call March 30 from Game and Fish.

Snagged with a fishing rod, El Presidente proved more manageable than her fans at the Last Chance. "They were ready to lynch me," Hardwick says.

Game officers prevented Dryer and others from blocking the capture. Mouth taped, the gator was hauled away and quickly killed with a .22. In this way, 4,632 nuisance gators were taken last year. The sale of the skin, at a state auction, is the trapper's fee.

Laura Dryer is heartsick and angry about El Presidente. "There was no justification for them to pull it out of the water and shoot it!"

Says Lt. Jeff Ardelean of Game and Fish: "They signed its death warrant by feeding it."

Indeed, El Presidente was one well-nourished saurian. At her death, she weighed 270 pounds. "Obese," says Hardwick. "The fattest eight-foot-four alligator we ever saw."

The girth of her tail was a Limbaughesque 32 inches, compared to the usual 18 or 19 inches of a gator that length.

Dryer says she didn't see throngs of people feeding El Presidente. She said the ca.n.a.l is teeming with fish, turtles and other natural cuisine upon which the gator gorged, though it's possible that customers donated high-calorie table sc.r.a.ps.

Inside the Last Chance Saloon, black armbands are worn in El Presidente's memory. Mourners don T-shirts denouncing the state: "Environmentally Protected, My a.s.s." There's even talk of a motorcycle run, to protest the killing.

Because of death threats, Todd Hardwick's house was put under police watch. Unaccustomed to the role of villain, he says he truly understands why people are upset.

It's easy to become attached to animals, even a crusty one-eyed alligator. Sadly, in these risky relationships, it's usually the reptile who winds up getting hurt.

Wildlife losing their homes as we build ours December 12, 1996 One day late in November, travelers on U.S. 27 in western Broward County saw an unusual sight: a wild bobcat walking dazed in broad daylight along the busy highway.

Usually the cats are nocturnal, shying from human activity. They are especially unfond of speeding automobiles.

A concerned motorist reported the animal to the Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale. The center immediately sent its ambulance and volunteers.

When they arrived at the area, just north of the Dade line, they found no sign of the cat. But after a brief search they spotted it hiding in brushy cover, not far from a cleared construction site.

The animal was weak, and put up no struggle. It died in the ambulance racing back to the Wildlife Care Center.

Rescuers had a sad mystery on their hands: an adult male bobcat about 2 years old, which should have been in its physical prime. No signs of trauma-the cat hadn't been shot or struck by a car, or mauled by another animal.

A necropsy was performed by the center's veterinarian, Dr. Deb Anderson. She found no fractures, no internal injuries, no disease in the organs.

What she did find was a shockingly emaciated animal with white gums and not an ounce of body fat. The young bobcat was all skin and bones. It had starved to death.

Starved, on the edge of the Everglades. How?

They're paving the edge of the Everglades, in case you hadn't noticed. The corridor from Southwest Broward through Northwest Dade has become bulldozer heaven.

It's the final horizon before the dikes, the last open mecca in which to slap up crowded subdivisions with fanciful names such as Big Sky North and Bluegra.s.s Lakes. Naturally, politicians are rubber-stamping these monstrosities as fast as possible.

For humans, overdevelopment means your kids are shoehorned into cla.s.srooms and you're stuck behind dump trucks every morning on I-75. For wildlife, the inconveniences are more perilous.

Unlike sc.r.a.ppy opossums and racc.o.o.ns, bobcats don't adapt to human encroachment-they flee from it. In fact they're so reclusive that a person could spend a lifetime in Florida and never lay eyes on one.

The cats aren't listed as endangered, but they've been pushed so far away that they're rarely encountered. Of 12,000 animals brought to the wildlife center this year, only four were bobcats.

And only one arrived dead of starvation a few days before Thanksgiving, another small casualty of "progress."

Like the much larger panther, bobcats are fiercely territorial. If a young male wanders into an older cat's range, the younger animal is attacked and sometimes killed.

Imagine what happens when one of them suddenly loses its home to machines; when the woods where it hunts small mammals and dens its kittens are flattened to moonscape.

The cat can't run east because east got paved. Can't go west because it's mostly water. Can't go north or south without battling other bobcats for a spa.r.s.e, shrinking habitat.

Dr. Anderson believes the male found along U.S. 27 chose to hang tough, refusing to abandon his home range. He spent his final days running on magnificent guts and desperation, hunting himself to exhaustion in a barren future suburb of Miramar or Pembroke Pines.

Soon, on the same ground that cat and its ancestors once roamed, there will be a new condo clubhouse or outlet shops, or perhaps a multiplex cinema.

And the parking lots will fill with avid newcomers who won't know about the small wild tracks that got buried under all that greed.

'97 is already a mean season for wildlife May 25, 1997 A few days ago, a man in Key Largo took half a raw chicken and stuck it on a big triple-barbed hook. The hook was attached to a heavy nylon rope, which was reinforced with a steel cable leader.

The man lobbed the hooked chicken into a ca.n.a.l and began to wait. This is exactly how a poacher would do it-"a cla.s.sic set-hook for crocodilians," said reptile expert Todd Hardwick, who later was called to the scene.

Before long, something swam along and ate the man's bait. It was a male North American crocodile measuring 9 feet, 10 inches and weighing about 350 pounds.

The animal was one of a pair that lived in the waterway, not far from the John Pennekamp state park. This species has been fighting back from the edge of extinction, and South Florida is the only place in the world where it lives.

More timid than alligators, these crocs are not known to attack humans. The big one that swallowed the baited chicken had long ago been tagged by a biologist named Paul Moler, who works for the state. Moler has spent years trying to save Florida's crocodiles.

This one was No. 050358. Moler had marked it after it emerged from the nest on Aug. 9, 1982, at the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Key Largo.

Its life ended only a few miles away, under a dock, where it thrashed to death on the end of a rope. Its insides were torn to shreds.

Somebody in the neighborhood spotted the carca.s.s and called authorities, because killing crocodiles is highly illegal. n.o.body has been arrested yet.

A man interviewed by wildlife officers said he was innocently fishing when the croc grabbed his bait. Wow! Fishing with a chicken on a steel cable-they must grow some d.a.m.n big snappers in that ca.n.a.l.

It continues to be a brutal season for Florida wildlife, with jerks running amok. In March, a 10-ton Minke whale died near Big Pine Key after being shot five times by unknown persons.

Who knows why anyone would take target practice on such a harmless and elegant creature, but you can bet on a pathetic combination of boredom and stupidity. Bullets from two separate guns were removed from the dead whale.

Then, from the purely vicious to the purely greedy: Five young sports from Hialeah were arrested two weeks ago in Biscayne National Park. They carried no fishing licenses, but had a boatload of illegal booty, including undersize and out-of-season lobster, 458 queen conchs and the remains of a rare loggerhead turtle.

The goons who butchered the turtle could get 12 to 18 months in a federal prison. A park ranger found the animal's flippers while searching the boat.

Days later, several men were busted for illegal spearfishing around Dinner Key and Government Cut.You know you've found paradise when you can poach lobsters within wading distance of the Miami skyline.

Some judges go easy on wildlife violators, and others are as tough as the law allows. Unfortunately, the maximum fines are too low and the maximum jail sentences are too light for the crime, which is nothing short of robbery.

A few neighbors on that ca.n.a.l in Key Largo said they were glad the croc was gone. They said they feel safer now.

That's almost understandable-it was a large, scary-looking critter. The fact it hadn't hurt anyone didn't matter. Fear is fear.

Still, some folks would like their kids one day to see a loggerhead turtle in the Atlantic, or even a wild crocodile in Florida Bay.

That No. 050358 held on for almost 15 years is a small miracle of nature, considering all the numbskulls and bandits it had to elude.

Turtle's slaying shows we need more Cousteaus June 29, 1997 Eighty-seven years is a long time, but not long enough for Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Unfortunately, he died before his work was done.

Although his ardent writings and dazzling photography awakened millions to the world underwater, he couldn't reach everybody.

Last weekend in Marathon, a little girl named Mich.e.l.le was fishing from a motel dock when she accidentally snagged a sea turtle. The child called to family members, who hurried over to investigate the commotion.

You needn't be a student of Cousteau doc.u.mentaries to know that sea turtles in Florida and around the world are in danger of being wiped out. The humane response would have been to unhook the animal and let it swim away.

That's what one of the girl's relatives originally claimed they'd done. But that isn't what actually happened.

According to the Florida Marine Patrol, one of the family members grabbed a spear gun and shot the turtle as it struggled on the end of the fishing line.

Then, witnesses say, the family carried it to their boat and sped off. Other tourists, infuriated, notified authorities.

When the Coast Guard intercepted the boat in Florida Bay, officers found the deck smeared with blood, but no turtle. On sh.o.r.e, more blood was found in a garbage can. Samples were collected for evidence.

Killing turtles is a serious crime. The Marine Patrol has charged Rene Robinson, Carlos Robinson and Ricardo Robinson, of Miami. The federal government also might prosecute.

Officers say Rene Robinson admitted spearing the turtle and stashing it in the garbage. When another relative informed him that keeping turtles was illegal, the family allegedly decided to dump the carca.s.s offsh.o.r.e.

It was quite a gruesome little tableau to unfold on a Sunday evening in a resort area, the singular attraction of which is, ironically, its unique tropical sea life.

People travel to South Florida from all over the planet to see in person what they've seen only in books or on television-the soaring dolphins, the cruising sharks, the whole teeming kaleidoscope of the coral reefs.

They certainly don't come to see a helpless creature gored by some troglodyte with a spear gun.

Killing will happen as long as there's life underwater. Sea turtles and other endangered species are regularly taken, but often it's done because people are poor and hungry-not because they're bored on their vacation.

What took place in the Keys wouldn't have surprised Jacques Cousteau, though it would have saddened him. He spent a lifetime crusading against the foolhardy and wanton pillage of lakes, rivers and seas.