Adorable Leopard Cat Cub's Journey Home Documentary Wins Platinum Award at American Film Festival

The leopard cat, the only remaining native felid in Taiwan, China, is on the brink of extinction due to habitat destruction and human factors. In recent years, the Endemic Species Research Institute of the Council of Agriculture has promoted conservation work, and in 2013 it successfully bred a pair of leopard cat siblings, Jili and Jibao, and released them into the wild after they grew up. At the same time, it commissioned Shih Chun Communications to document the process of Jili and Jibao moving from captivity into the wild environment, producing the documentary Children of the Earth - The Little Leopard Cat's Road Home.

The film took two years to shoot, was released in January, and on April 18 of this year won the Platinum Award at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival in the United States. Amid the celebrations, the Endemic Species Research Institute and the production team Shih Chun Communications recently decided to put 5 language versions of the documentary (including Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, Japanese and English) online for the public to watch, hoping that sharing the documentary will help people better understand the importance of leopard cat conservation.

Taiwan's only native felid: fewer than 1000 leopard cats

Living in the Miaoli, Taichung and Nantou areas, at altitudes below 500 m, the leopard cat is the apex predator in the food chain of the shallow-mountain ecosystem. Because its habitat overlaps with humans, and because of factors such as the setting of animal traps by people, it has long faced threats to its survival. According to the Endemic Species Research Institute's existing survey statistics, there are fewer than 1000 leopard cats in Taiwan, China. And after the extinction of the Taiwan clouded leopard was confirmed in 2013