Cat Tale

“Craig Pittman has a remarkable talent for telling stories set in the Sunshine State that never fail to fascinate and entertain. Sure, Cat Tale has plenty of laughs and Florida weirdness, but Pittman has written a truly inspirational story about the panther’s brush with extinction, and the human beings who were determined to save the species. You won’t be able to put Cat Tale down.”—Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning, Devil in the Grove

It wasn’t so long ago when a lot of people thought the Florida panther was extinct. They were very nearly right. That the panther still exists at all is a miracle—the result of a desperate experiment that led to the most remarkable comeback in the history of the Endangered Species Act. And no one has told the whole story—until now.

With novelistic detail and an eye for the absurd, Craig Pittman recounts the extraordinary story of the people who brought the panther back from the brink of extinction, the ones who nearly pushed the species over the edge, and the cats that were caught in the middle. This being Florida, there’s more than a little weirdness, too.

An engrossing narrative of wry humor, sharp writing and exhaustive reportage, Cat Tale shows what it takes to bring one species back and what unexpected costs such a decision brings.