Florida released eight Texas pumas into its collapsing panther population, a desperate move to save a species on the brink. Within weeks, something impossible appeared in the genetic data, challenging everything scientists believed about the big cats’ survival.
By the early 1990s, fewer than 30 Florida panthers remained in the wild, the last survivors of a cat that once ranged across the American Southeast. The population was in serious trouble. Nearly every male carried a genetic defect affecting fertility, and many kittens were born with heart problems. Geneticists estimated a 95% chance the animal would be extinct within 20 years.The response involved…