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Most people live in Florida their entire lives and never catch a glimpse of a panther.

Residents in Golden Gate Estates awoke to find one of the endangered cats in a neighborhood tree early Tuesday.

“I thought it was pretty cool because I’ve always wanted to see a panther,” said 13-year-old Bernice Carrillo. “It was very beautiful. It had a gold coat and light eyes. It was very pretty.”

A “Beware of Dog” sign is prominently visable on the fence at the Carrillo family’s home at 140 27th St. SW.

The panther found out.

The family’s 3-year-old golden retrievers, Judah and Leah, chased it up a 40-foot pine tree in the backyard.

After about three hours of peering down at its unfamiliar surroundings, the juvenile male climbed down and scrambled away unharmed — except, maybe, for it’s pride, said Darrell Land, a panther biologist for FWC.

“He was not exactly pleased and probably more embarrassed than anything else about being up there,” Land said. “You’d be surprised about how small of a dog can effectively tree a mountain lion.”

There are only about 100 of the elusive creatures left in the wild and they prefer to spend nearly all of their lives under the heavy cover of trees and vegetation.

Juvenile males, however, are known to roam. Many times they are forced out by larger males or are in search of territory and a mate.

Rarely, though, do humans actually see one of the cats, even when they travel through neighborhoods.

“It was the neatest thing to see that animal up there since they are so scarce,” said the Carrillo’s next-door neighbor, Lee Boyd, 68. “You could just see him hanging up there in that big old tree.”

Land got the call just before 8 a.m. that a panther was in a tree in a backyard.

He sent Mark Lotz, a wildlife biologist from FWC, who lives in the area to the scene.

Lotz found the cat perched on some limbs about 30-feet high in a pine tree inside the fence yard.

Neighbors told him they heard the homeowner’s dogs making a ruckus just before 7 a.m.

“I went out to get the paper and all the wildlife officers where out there looking up and there was a huge cat up there. He was just beautiful.” Boyd said. “I’ve lived here almost 35 years I’ve never seen anything of it.”

A panther’s natural instinct is to climb trees to avoid trouble of any kind, Lotz said.

In this case, it worked.

“When I got there, the dogs weren’t interested anymore,” he said. “They were sleeping in the driveway.”

By then, a crowd of wildlife officers and biologists had arrived.

They planned to let the panther come down on it’s own but as the morning wore on and the cat refused to budge, they began considering Plan B.

“We were making plans to dart the cat,” Lotz said. “We didn’t want to leave him in the tree all day long. It’s hot up there and not the safest situation for a panther.”

Lotz contacted the capture team, which planned to tranquilize the cat and then catch it in a net or “crash pad” to help cushion its fall.

As if sensing its fate, the panther scrambled backwards down the tree before jumping the remaining 10 feet to the ground. It took off towards the back of the property, scaled a fence and darted for cover in a wooded area. The panther likely stayed in the dense cover until nightfall, when it was expected to make its way back out of Golden Gates Estates, Land said.

“He’ll probably retrace his steps to get out of the estates,” he said. “How many nights that will take, we don’t know:”

Regardless, officials do not expect to see the panther again.

“A sighting like this is a pretty rare event,” Land said.

“I’ve not seen one in the wild without cheating,” Lotz added, referring to the use of dogs to track and collar panthers for research. “As far as driving through the woods and seeing one run across the trail, that is something I’ve never seen. I’ve seen a bear and a bobcat but never a panther.”