Conservation of Taiwan's Leopard Cats

30-Second Overview

Taiwan once had clouded leopards, but they were officially declared extinct in 2013. Now, the last native feline in Taiwan is a single species—the Leopard Cat (Prionailurus bengalensis). It is estimated that fewer than 500 remain in Taiwan, and their numbers are still declining. This is not a static figure, but a downward-sloping line.

If we do nothing, the next species declared extinct may vanish within this generation.

They do not live in deep mountains. They inhabit the low-altitude, shallow mountain regions of Miaoli, Nantou, and Taichung—areas facing the highest pressure from human development. They are killed by cars while crossing roads, their hunting grounds are covered by factories, their prey (chickens) makes farmers resentful, and they are even killed by stray dogs. The story of the leopard cat is the sharpest direct confrontation between "development" and "conservation" in Taiwan.

Key Data:

Estimated population in Taiwan: Fewer than 500
Primary habitat: Low-altitude shallow mountains in Miaoli, Nantou, and Taichung
Roadkill reports (2017–2023): Over 130 individuals
Classified as a first-class endangered wildlife species in Taiwan
The only remaining native feline in Taiwan

Why It Matters

The leopard cat is important not just because it is a cat, but because it is an indicator species for shallow mountain ecosystems. If leopard cats thrive, it means the entire shallow mountain environment (frogs, rodents, birds, and insects in the fields) is healthy. If they disappear, it means the food chain has broken.

A deeper meaning is this: the places where leopard cats live are not uninhabited wilderness; they are human backyards. Protecting the leopard cat is equivalent to asking a question no one wants to answer—are we willing to leave a piece of land at our own doorstep for other species?

Our daily decisions directly affect their life and death, from the design of local roads to the farming methods used on agricultural land.

The leopard cat's habitat coincides exactly with the areas of highest human development pressure; their plight is the most severe test of conservation work in Taiwan.

The Ghost Cat: You May Never Have Seen One

Not a House Cat, Nor a Leopard

The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) is its scientific name, but it has no relation to leopards. They are roughly the size of a domestic cat, weighing approximately 3 to 6 kg.

How to distinguish them? The most obvious feature is two white longitudinal stripes on the forehead, extending from the nose to the forehead. There are distinct white spots (false eyes) on the back of the ears. Their bodies are covered in black spots, not stripes.

Leopard cats are nocturnal and have large home ranges (males can cover 5–10 km²), living solitary lives. This is why they are called "ghost cats"—they live near you, but you may never see one in your lifetime.

The Shallow Mountains: Their Home and Their Graveyard

Leopard cats do not live in high-mountain national parks. They inhabit shallow mountain areas below 800 meters above sea level, where farmlands, orchards, bamboo groves, and secondary forests intermingle.

The characteristic of these areas is that they are very close to humans. The rural paths, orchard edges, and stream corridors in townships like Tongxiao, Houlong, Xihu, and Tongluo in Miaoli; Zhongliao and Jiji in Nantou; and Xinshe and Heping in Taichung are the habitats of leopard cats, but they are also the areas most densely packed with road development, agricultural expansion, and factory construction.

Four Ways to Die

1. Roadkill: The Quietest Slaughter

In Taiwan's conservation circles, there is a term that sends chills down one's spine: roadkill. Leopard cats are nocturnal; they cross roads at night to forage, find mates, or patrol territories. However, the rural highways in Miaoli and Nantou lack wildlife crossings, speed reduction facilities, or any design considerations for wild animals.

When headlights flash, the leopard cat's eyes reflect the light, and then—

The Wowo special report on roadkill used a heartbreaking headline: "Snap! And then I became jerky."

Between 2017 and 2023, there were over 130 recorded leopard cat roadkills. ¹ As for those not discovered, no one knows how many there are.

Researcher Lin Yu-hsiu tracked a leopard cat named "Xiao Cao" (Little Grass). It was hit by a car twice, and survived both times. Lin said: "Xiao Cao managed to save itself through two accidents; if we still do nothing for the leopard cats, then we are truly wasting their will to survive."

2. Habitat Loss: Homes Being Demolished

Miaoli County has the highest density of leopard cat populations and the best habitat connectivity. However, Miaoli is also one of the most frequent sites of development disputes among all counties in Taiwan.

In 2019, the "Leopard Cat Conservation Autonomy Ordinance" proposed by the Miaoli County Government was rejected twice by the County Council. The reason given was that it would "affect local development." In a county that claims to be the "Capital of Leopard Cats," they could not even pass a single regulation to protect them.

This is the absurd theater of conservation in Taiwan: you use the leopard cat's name for tourism marketing, print it on mascots, and paint it on buses—but when protecting them actually requires limiting development, the leopard cat is no longer important.

3. Dog Attacks: The Most Underrated Threat

This is the most awkward reality that the animal protection community in Taiwan wants to avoid: stray dogs kill leopard cats.

More and more footage from automatic cameras shows packs of roaming dogs appearing in leopard cat habitats, chasing, attacking, and killing them. Wowo produced an entire special on "Dog Attacks on Leopard Cats," showing that dog attacks are the second largest documented cause of death after roadkill.

Killing is only half of this threat. Roaming dogs and cats simultaneously bring infectious diseases into the shallow mountains; infected leopard cats then have a lower chance of surviving on the roads, meaning dog attacks and roadkill are not statistically independent causes of death. The full discussion regarding this causal chain, virus screening data from National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, and the resulting controversy over zero-culling policies can be found in Taiwan's Stray Animal Culture.

This places Taiwan's animal protection groups and ecological conservation scholars in an extremely awkward position. Those protecting stray dogs say "we cannot cull them"; those protecting leopard cats say "if we don't manage roaming dogs, the leopard cat will truly go extinct."

Both sides are trying to protect animals, yet the animals on both sides are killing each other.

There is no answer to this debate yet, but it forces Taiwanese society to face a fact: "loving animals" is not a simple stance; it is full of contradictions and trade-offs.

4. Poisoning and Traps

Leopard cats eat chickens. For farmers in shallow mountain areas, a leopard cat entering a chicken coop represents a real economic loss. Some farmers respond directly: by using poison.

Additionally, although mountain traps were explicitly banned in 2020, they still exist clandestinely. When a leopard cat triggers a trap, it may suffer minor injuries like lost toes, or more severely, starve to death because it can no longer forage.

The Light of Conservation: People are Watching Over Them

Leopard Cat Ecological Payments

"Don't catch my chickens, and I won't poison you"—the logic is clear, but you cannot ask a leopard cat to understand human speech. So, the government changed its approach: pay the farmers.

Since 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture has promoted the "Leopard Cat Ecological Payment Program." ² As long as farmers adopt wildlife-friendly farming methods (no poisoned bait, no traps) within leopard cat habitats, they can receive subsidies of up to NT$20,000 per hectare. If an automatic camera captures a leopard cat on your farmland, you get an additional NT$10,000.

This is not charity. This is turning farmers into allies of conservation rather than enemies.

Since implementation, hundreds of farming households have joined. One farmer said: "Before, I wanted to curse when I saw a leopard cat; now, I take my phone out to photograph them because if I catch one on camera, I get money."

Ecological Corridors and Wildlife Crossings

To address the roadkill problem, certain sections of roads in Miaoli and Nantou have begun installing wildlife crossings, building culverts or passages under highways so leopard cats can cross safely.

Are these passages useful? Automatic cameras have captured footage of leopard cats using them. They are useful, but there are not enough of them. In the entire highway network of Miaoli, the sections equipped with wildlife crossings remain a minority.

Celebrity Leopard Cats

Conservation needs stories and protagonists. Ji-bao, a rescued leopard cat from the Houli Animal Home in Taichung, has become a star of conservation education due to its friendly personality. It has introduced many people who never cared about leopard cats to the existence of this animal in Taiwan.

A-hu, a leopard cat from the Biodiversity Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, has participated in artificial breeding programs. ³ Every time an artificially bred leopard cat cub is born, it makes the news.

The existence of these celebrity leopard cats is contradictory—they are near humans only because they can no longer survive in the wild.

The Leopard Cat Conservation Autonomy Ordinance: A Mirror to Local Politics

The 2019 Miaoli County Council session was one of the most absurd moments in Taiwan's conservation history. After years of promotion by ecologists and conservation groups, the Miaoli County Government finally proposed the draft for the Leopard Cat Conservation Autonomy Ordinance. The content was not radical: it simply required that development projects within leopard cat habitats undergo ecological assessments. The County Council rejected it the first time; after revisions, it was submitted again and rejected a second time.

Councilors' reasons for opposition included: "Leopard cats are protected species; central laws already manage them, so local legislation is unnecessary," "It will affect the county's construction and development," and "Farmers are already working hard enough."

These reasons sound reasonable, but in plain language, they mean: leopard cats must not get in the way.

Throughout the streets of Miaoli, leopard cat motifs are everywhere: bus stops, garbage trucks, tourism brochures. The leopard cat is Miaoli's mascot, but it is not allowed to be Miaoli's neighbor.

Ultimately, under public pressure, the Miaoli County Council passed Taiwan's first Leopard Cat Conservation Autonomy Ordinance on December 10, 2019, after its third reading. ⁴ However, this process itself has become a classic case of the massive gap between "verbal conservation" and "actual action" in Taiwan.

Surprising Facts

These details might seem like trivia, but every single one points to the same reality: leopard cats live too close to human life.

🐆 The official scientific name for the leopard cat is Prionailurus bengalensis, but it has no kinship with leopards. 👀 A leopard cat's night vision is 6 times better than a human's, which is why they are particularly prone to being "frozen" by headlights on night roads. 🏠 The home range of a male leopard cat can reach 5–10 km², roughly equivalent to the entire Da'an District in Taipei.

☠️ Taiwan once had clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa), but they were officially declared extinct in the wild in 2013. 💰 In the Leopard Cat Ecological Payment Program, "bonus" photos taken by farmers have unexpectedly become popular content on social media. 🐕 In cases of dog attacks, the aggressors are mostly packs of roaming dogs (3 or more) rather than solitary strays. 🗳️ After being rejected twice by the County Council, the Miaoli Leopard Cat Conservation Autonomy Ordinance was only passed on its third attempt—yet Miaoli simultaneously uses the leopard cat as a tourism mascot. 📸 The automatic camera network of the Biodiversity Research Institute is currently the most systematic means of tracking leopard cat population dynamics—but its coverage is still less than half of the total leopard cat habitat.

The Last Five Hundred

When Taiwan lost the clouded leopard, no one had time to say goodbye. The leopard cat is different; it is still here, with fewer than five hundred remaining. It walks along the edges of orchards in Miaoli, hunts in the bamboo groves of Nantou, and waits for a safe chance to cross beside a highway you pass every day during your commute.

Those involved in leopard cat conservation often say: "If our generation messes this up, the next generation will only see leopard cats in a specimen room."

This is not alarmism. It is mathematics. With fewer than five hundred left, dozens dying from roadkill every year, habitats being fragmented piece by piece, and the risk of inbreeding increasing, the situation is dire.

Taiwanese people like to say, "Pray and you will be blessed" (you bai you bao you). But leopard cats do not pray. They will only continue to cross those roads without wildlife crossings in the dead of night, leaving everything to chance.