A tawny young panther showing no fear of people and frequenting a sacred tribal site in the heart of the Everglades now lives in a remote part of Hendry County called Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest.

The cat was one of three repeatedly spotted on lands belonging to the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida and in the small town of Pinecrest between Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park.

Unlike most Florida panthers, these cats — a mother and 2-year-old kittens — didn’t run at the sight of people.

State and federal panther experts twice treed the cats, collared them and vaccinated them — even pelted them with harmless slingshot pellets — in an attempt to teach them to fear people.

The scare tactics appeared to be working, state biologists said.

But the male kitten kept returning to a sacred ceremonial site used by the Miccosukee for the annual Green Corn Dance.

At least one woman said she would not attend the religious ceremony out of fear of the panther, and the tribe demanded the cats be removed.

“We decided to move the cat because of the fear it has generated among the Miccosukees and out of respect for their sacred ceremony,” said Ken Haddad, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission executive director, in a written statement.

FWC, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Park Service said the cat was not a threat, but they couldn’t guarantee the panther wouldn’t show up at the ceremony because the site was an upland ridge among wetlands.

“We want to make it clear that we did not set a precedent here,” said FWC spokesman Henry Cabbage.

On Friday, wildlife biologists captured the male panther and moved it to a new home in the Okaloacoochee, commonly known as OK Slough, about 60 miles northwest of his old home.

The slough is a public swath of land east of Felda and southeast of LaBelle. Part of it extends into Collier County.

Scientists can’t be sure the cat won’t return to its old digs — like a lost dog — but they said they are confident it won’t.

“We’ve been monitoring his movements and he’s pretty much hung tight where we moved him,” said Thomas Eason, chief of the FWC Bureau of Wildlife Diversity Conservation.