A turkey hunter found himself face-to-face with an endangered panther, and the incredibly close encounter was caught on camera. Jason Francis, set out to hunt turkey in the Babcock Ranch Preserve on Monday when he suddenly found himself in a standoff with a different wild animal — a Florida panther! “I hear a stick break and turn around, and the panther's walking right toward me,” Francis said. “I had my shotgun in my lap, and the first thing I did when I saw it is I went and grabbed my phone first, only because I was like nobody is going to believe me!”Francis said he was making a hen call to attract a turkey when the big cat wandered out of the trees instead. He told sister station NBC2 he was only 10-15 feet away from the majestic creature. In the video, you can hear his breathing, trying to stay calm, as the moment was frightening but magical. “It had to have been around 200 pounds at least,” he said. “My adrenaline was going pretty good. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” The video shows the wild cat stop dead in its tracks, take a pause, and then, seconds later, calmly retreat into the woods.Experts consider any sighting to be rare. They say there are only 200 panthers left in the wild. Francis said this was the first time being this close to the animal, but he had seen endangered panthers on the hunting land in the preserve.