Trace the Dragon Tail

1. Shei-pa Nation Park
Shei-shan Range, which means snow mountain, locates in the northwestern part of central mountain range. Shei-pa Nation Park covers this natural area including the secondary highest peak, Shei-shan(3,884m), in Taiwan. In the 1990s, Lin Kang-chiou reported that there were 2 Clouded Leopards hunted in Miau-li County, the hill area near Shei-pa NP by interviewing some indigenous hunters. In the 1990s too, one police official in Shei-pa Nation Park reported that a native hunter, living in Huang-shan tribe near the NP, traped a cub of Clouded Leopard in the traditional hunting area along the climbing trail.

2. Western Yu-shan NP
Central Mountain Range is the vertical vertebrae skeleton of Taiwan from north to south. All the high mountain (>3,000m) are in that range system and conserve most wildlife due to the steppery geological factors. However this mountain area is the major habitat for the wild livings and has the largest natural forest in the island. But there are few systematic surveys about the distribution and abundance of wild animals in this diverse area. Before we only had the old news about somebody catched the Clouded Leopard in Mt. Ali in1955(CBSG in Taipei City Zoo, 1995). Alan Robinwitz(1988) wrote the interviewing result from 70 people and said during1983-88, 5 people had the direct sighting or heard about that in Yu-shan NP. Although we had National Park Law since 1972. Till 1885, the Ministry Department finally established the largest National Park in Taiwan, Yu-shan NP, with 64,200 ha (about 1.8% of the whole island area). About 60% of this area is setting for core conserved zone, which possibly protected several major large mammals including the Clouded Leopard. Recently in 1994-95, Lai Ching-chang reported Clouded Leopard being shot by a hunter in the Nan-hsi forest trail of Yu-shan NP. He said that "one aborigianl hunter has hunted one clouded leopard in Nan-hsi. This leopard was shot accidentally when the hunter was hunting flying squirrels". But we still did not have any idea in the real condition for the Clouded Leopard population.

3. Ta-ru-ko NP
Ta-ru-ko NP was established in 1986 with a secondarily large area(49,700 ha) in Taiwan. The location is pretty close to the Shei-pa NP above and these linked area can play an important role in eclogical conservation in the heart of North Taiwan. In 1989-90 we found the record of a cub pelt here(CBSG in Taipei City Zoo, 1995). In the 1990s, Dr. Lee Ling-ling, the prof. in ecology at National Taiwan Univ., proved that there was one slide of pelt released by hunters in Ta-ru-ko NP. Besides, Liu Chiung-hsi, a prof. of Taitung Normal College, examined one sample of fece from Clouded Leopard near Mt. Chi-lai in Ta-ru-ko NP.

4. Eastern Yu-shan NP Because of the economic development in this mid-century, agriculture and logging in low to middle altitude land forced the wildlife distrbution to move toward higher mountain area, especially originally the species which were living in the matured forest phase. The Clouded Leopard is a dorminant example. Constrasting to the development in the West Taiwan, the East Taiwan is still a refugee for wildlife, respectly, even in some lower land. In 1990-91, Lu Kuang-yang, a prof. at National Taiwan Normal Univ., did a general research for the fauna in Yu-li Wildlife Reserve in Hua-lien County near the Eastern Yu-shan NP. He checked the 3 samples of footprints from the only large carnivore, the Clouded Leopard, in this area and interviewed a native hunter over there, Chiu Shan-chuan , who had ever seen it with a glapse.
Lai Ching-chang in the 1990s also saw a footprint of that near Wa-la-mi in Yu-shan NP. In the same period, Chiang Po-jen reported one record from sighting. He said "I knew it from one aboriginal hunter. The record was [about the] sighting [of] one clouded leopard on one tree, no shooting."

5. Ta-wu-shan Nature Reserve
Ta-wu-shan Nature Reserve, which is in the southern smooth slope part of the Central Range, maybe the last possible protected area which has the rare population of the Clouded Leopard by its unspoided natural resourse and large enough (47,000 ha, next to Yu-shan and Ta-ru-ko NP) landscape covering the range between low to medium tropical broadleaf forest. Mt. Tawu, which is the highest peak in the South Taiwan with 3090m, is the traditional holy zone to the tribers. The two native people living around this wide area, Pai-wan and Lu-kai, have several tales about the Clouded Leopard and knows more for that Holy symbol. But the numbers of the wildlife drastically reduced in recent years, of course including the Clouded Leopard. We only had an old record in 1982 (CBSG in Taipei City Zoo, 1995). And Alan Robinwitz(1988) reported 2 people in 70 interviewers had seen or heard during 1983-88. On the Chinapost of Aug. 26th, 1984, Chang Wan-fu, a prof. at Tung-hai Univ., said "he stuffed, examined and took a photo for a back molar of cub, which part was not erupted in snare on Aug, 1983 (Alan Robinwitz, 1988).

This page appreciates the survey from Po-Jen Chiang in Taiwan.