The Florida panther remains the rarest of creatures in South Miami-Dade County, but it stands to have growing impact on development chewing into the wild lands adjacent to the Everglades.

The cat, thought to have all but vanished east of U.S. 1 until a young female was killed in February on Card Sound Road, already has held up some projects, including a public school in Homestead.

That's because federal regulators for the first time have begun formally reviewing impacts on the endangered species in an area that covers much of undeveloped South Miami-Dade and a few existing neighborhoods in Homestead and Florida City.

The panther's presence may prove to pose little more than a delay for many projects, but it could -- potentially, at least -- require some builders to alter site plans, set aside more open land or buy more habitat off-site as mitigation.

But one thing the cat almost certainly won't do is halt development.

In biological assessments of 69 projects over 22 years in Florida panther habitat statewide, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ultimately has approved every one, though most with agreements to protect panther territory elsewhere.

Allen Webb, planning supervisor for the service's field office in Vero Beach, doubted that trend would change in South Miami-Dade, home to a small fraction of the state's estimated 80 to 90 adult cats.

"I don't think you will ever get into, say, blocking development," Webb said.

That's disappointing to environmentalists, who have been fighting to defuse the building boom consuming, acre by acre, wetlands in South Miami-Dade.

`A THOUSAND CUTS'

"It's death by a thousand cuts," said Cynthia Guerra, executive director of the Tropical Audubon Society, one of several groups involved in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rescind a wetlands permit and derail the proposed 6,000-home Florida City Commons.

One of their suit's key arguments is that the remaining open lands south of Florida City and Homestead provide critical habitat for panthers, an animal supposed to be protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

In the last few years, the wildlife service has come under criticism from environmentalists, who complained the federal agency was a paper tiger when it came to confronting the most critical threat to cats -- development.

But for some in Homestead, the new scrutiny smacks of regulatory overkill.

It has pushed back groundbreaking for a new school in the Keys Gate community for more than a year, much to the frustration of Lynda Bell, a Homestead council member.

The school is the first of three slated to be built under a special taxing district intended to relieve badly overcrowded classrooms in the area.

"Here we are hoping we can get this school turned around, and we were slammed at every turn by permitting," Bell said. "What is silly about this is that it's a residential neighborhood."

It's also inside the ''panther consultation area'' that the wildlife service quietly mapped out in the last few years as part of an agreement with the Corps. Requests to build inside the boundary now mandate consultation with the service before the Corps can issue permits.

FIRST ASSESSMENTS

In the case of the school and the nearby Coral Key housing project, it triggered the first full-scale biological assessments of potential panther impacts in South Miami-Dade. More are in the pipeline, said John Studt, chief of the Corps' south permits branch. "There are panther issues with many projects in the Homestead area."

While such time-consuming reviews have been common for a decade in fast-growing Southwest Florida, home to most of Florida's panthers, the push here was slower in coming.

And until recently, biologists didn't believe panthers had all that much use for an area frequently soggy and pocked with rock pits, nurseries and farms.

A small population, perhaps 10 cats, had been estimated to live in Everglades National Park and the marshes and fields to the east and south. The last previous car strike was in 1988 about a mile east of U.S. 1 on Palm Drive in Homestead -- near the school and housing development in Keys Gate.

"Up until that panther mortality [on Card Sound Road], we didn't know if there were any east of U.S. 1," Webb said.

Because young females don't stray far from mothers, Webb believes there is at least one more adult panther in the area.

Impact on projects will vary widely, Webb said, depending on location, quality of the habitat and history of use.

Aside from time, headache and the cost of hiring consultants, builders in the consultation zone won't necessarily be facing huge new demands.

SCHOOL OK'D

Last month, for example, the service finally signed off on the school, accepting a plan already proposed to replace the site's 39 acres of wetlands.

In exchange, 62 acres will be preserved in a wetland mitigation bank on the grounds of the nearby Turkey Point nuclear power plant -- but no additional land because of the panther.

The service approved a similar mitigation for the nearby Coral Key development. Corps permits are expected to follow.

Guerra argued such swaps shrink the natural territory of an animal that federal wildlife managers say has so little room left in South Florida that some cats will have to be transplanted elsewhere to ensure the species' long-term survival.

Scientists say the animals, once found across much of the Southeast, need vast unspoiled tracts to survive. Males, in particular, demand huge ranges and have been known to attack and kill intruding males.

"It's these little seemingly innocuous reductions that add up," Guerra said. "It's becoming apparent to me that while there is lip service to cumulative impact, there doesn't seem to be any real effort to address it."

But Webb said the two Homestead developments will only benefit panthers -- trading "marginal wetlands" fringed by development for larger, more isolated grounds likely to appeal to the wary panthers and the critters they eat.

"It's much better quality habitat," he said.

Studt also defended agency oversight. State and federal recovery programs have tripled the population and pulled the cat from the brink of extinction -- in large part with the genetic boost of a cross-breeding experiment with Texas cougars.

"We are, in fact, altering projects to protect the panther," he said. "It's not simply a paper process."

PANTHER CROSSINGS

Panther crossings installed on Alligator Alley, for instance, also are planned as part of widening of the 18-Mile Stretch between Florida City and the Keys. Some also are being demanded for the massive Ave Maria University and town planned east of Naples.

The service, Webb said, also is talking with Miami-Dade about adding panther crossing signs on Card Sound Road and possible "rumble strips" intended to alert drivers when nearing the zones.

The panther wasn't prominently on the map in 2001 the first time the Corps issued a permit to fill 1,000 acres where Lennar Corp. now wants to build Florida City Commons. It is this time, as the agencies review a request for a five-year extension of a wetland permit due to expire this year.

Ed Swakon, an engineering consultant for Atlantic Civil, which owns the land, said he didn't expect the panther to make a difference in the agencies' decision. Developers already have committed to setting aside 1,500 surrounding acres for conservation, he said.

"If they can approve projects on the West Coast, then they sure as heck are going to be able to approve projects on the East Coast," Swakon said. "There are a few panthers here, but not nearly the number as on the West Coast."