A leopard cat was spotted in Alishan Township (阿里山) for the first time in 31 years, marking the highest altitude at which sightings of the locally endangered species have been documented, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s Chiayi branch reported last month.
Infrared cameras set up in the state-owned forests around Lijia Village (里佳部落) in Chiayi County’s Alishan Township earlier this month caught a leopard cat at an altitude of 1,752m, it said.
That marked a record-high altitude at which sightings of leopard cats have been documented, the branch said.
Photo courtesy of the Nantou County Government
It was also the first sighting of a leopard cat in Alishan since 1994, it said.
The cameras were set up by the branch in collaboration with the Tsou Hunters Association and the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, originally to monitor the distribution of Formosan black bears in the township, it said.
Previous leopard cat sighting records in the county include one in Jhongpu Township (中埔) in 2018 and another at the Chiayi interchange of Freeway No. 1, it said.
The leopard cat was caught on camera upstream near the Zengwen River (曾文溪), while another leopard cat had been spotted at a floodplain downstream of the river in July 2023, it said.
The connection showed that the Zengwen River conservation corridor of the National Ecological Network is significant in linking habitats and that rivers are important corridors for wildlife activities, it said.
In other news, the branch’s renovation of Alishan’s Tefuye Historic Trail (特富野古道) on Nov. 21 won the Engineering Sustainability and Environmental Aesthetics Award from the Chinese Institute of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering.
The trail is part of the Mountains to Sea Greenway — which connects the Jianan Plain (嘉南平原) to Alishan — and has become a friendship trail of Canada’s Bruce Trail, the branch said.
The Tefuye Historic Trail’s 13 bridges were all renovated to ensure visitors’ safety, with a focus on the coexistence of the trail, natural landscapes and ecological conservation, it said.
The project began in June 2022 and was completed in September 2023 at a cost of more than NT$24 million (US$767,803), branch director Lee Ting-chung (李定忠) said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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