Collier County’s rural growth plan has gone a long way toward putting together the pieces of the protected habitat puzzle for the endangered Florida panther, a state panther biologist said Tuesday.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission panther team leader Darrell Land told a committee reviewing the county’s Rural Lands Stewardship Area plan that he was “95 percent happy” with the original 2002 plan but suggested two areas that still need protection.

How the county plan should preserve panther habitat is one of the big questions facing the review committee, which county commissioners appointed to recommend changes to the plan.

The report is due in October.

At the center of that big question is a debate over the science behind what types of habitats are favored by panthers.

“I feel pretty comfortable we’ve got the big picture understood,” Land said.

A consultant for landowners wrote the Collier plan after then-Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet ordered a review of the county’s rural growth plan in light of an administrative law judge’s finding that the county wasn’t doing enough to protect the environment.

Under the plan, which applies to almost 200,000 acres around Immokalee, landowners can earn credits to build new towns by agreeing to set aside land designated for protection. The new town of Ave Maria and Ave Maria University was built under the plan, and a second new town, called Big Cypress, is on the drawing board.

Land praised the plan’s preservation of 24,000 acres, particularly on both sides of Oil Well Road and Immokalee Road east of Immokalee that will anchor wildlife crossings to be built under the roads.

A map of telemetry points from radio-collared panthers shows that other important travel corridors for panthers haven’t been protected so far, Land said.

He said the county plan should focus on preserving land along the west side of State Road 29, north of Oil Well Road, and land north of Immokalee, between Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed and the Okaloacoochee Slough.

Some critics question the reliability of telemetry points to guide panther protection because the points aren’t recorded at night, when panthers are most active, and only 20 panthers have radio collars. The panther population is estimated at between 80 and 100 cats.

The county plan relies too heavily on telemetry points to designate land for protection and misses, for example, farm fields, Conservancy of Southwest Florida government relations manager Nicole Ryan said.

The Conservancy has suggested that the county revamp its growth plan so that more than just forests and wetlands are designated for protection as panther habitat.

“That’s only part of the picture,” she said. “We have to take a broader perspective on that.”

Land is the lead author on a study published this year in the Journal of Wildlife Management that backs earlier findings the county used to designate panther habitat in the 2002 growth plan.

Former Conservation Commission biologist David Shindle, now a biologist at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, is listed as a co-author.

The study compared GPS tracking of panthers at night and during the day with daytime telemetry points and found what Land called only subtle differences between daytime and nighttime travel habits.

The landowner consultants and county reviewers have found that land designated for protection in the 2002 plan included more than 90 percent of panther telemetry points.

“When I was in school and getting 90 percent, I was knocking it out of the park,” said Barron Collier Cos. Vice President Tom Jones, a member of the review committee.

Florida Wildlife Federation field representative Nancy Payton said she is “comfortable with the science that supported the rural land stewardship program.”

“I don’t think we have to go back and start at ground zero and redo the whole thing,” Payton said.