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Interview

• ▼Teacher Luo
• ▼Former village chief
• ▼Chief of Zhulin Village
• ▼County councilor

Teacher Luo

Teacher Luo is a retired military officer, familiar with field activities and knowledge, and also has considerable research on ecology.Because the number of leopard cats killed by cars in Changhua in 2023 was twice that of 2022, he and Changhua County Councilor Yang held a press conference to call on all walks of life to pay attention to the conservation of leopard cats. He is committed to investigating the ecology of leopard cats and is also an expert we need to consult when studying leopard cats.

May I ask what is Teacher Luo’s motivation for studying leopard cats?

If we are going to save the leopard cat, we need to study it. In the past, Changhua was not a place where the academic community paid much attention to the leopard cat population. Then we must investigate, study and even photograph a lot of leopard cats. We want to save it, the fact that it must exist must be made known to the official government

How long have you been researching leopard cat?

Director Rongren and I have been looking for leopard cat in Miaoli and Nantou since 2014, but what is really intensive and continuous is that it has spanned 4 years from August 5, 2021 to now.

Is there any official or group assistance during Teacher Luo’s research?

Absolutely not. There is no official or non-governmental organization. I am the only one who works independently. However, I have received equipment support from Tongan Elementary School. The principal and director Rongren of Tongan Elementary School provided a sensor camera like this one, because I was photographing leopard cats. The night camera is the main tool.

Where did you probably see the leopard cat? Are there any leopard cat groups in Changhua?

We can divide it into mountain lines and stream lines. leopard cats can be found in the Maoluo River Basin, but it is more difficult in mountainous areas. It took me 615 days to photograph leopard cats in mountainous areas. The reason is that the main migration route of leopard cats has been severely cut off by stray dogs. The migration of leopard cats from Nantou, Mingjian and Jiji will be quite unfavorable due to the dense human settlements along the mountainous areas. The few braver leopard cats were heavily intercepted by dogs as they moved north to Changhua. Some of these dogs were Stray dogs, and some are trained by humans to hunt small animals. In this case, there are very few leopard cats that can actually survive in Bagua Mountain. There are only 3 records of leopard cats in Bagua Mountain in 31 years, which means that leopard cats are in Bagua Mountain. It is difficult to survive but a population of leopard cats can breed along the Maoluo River. The area along Maoluo River is a rice field belt, and the rice fields themselves have a rich ecology. I have identified 15 species of birds so far, as well as mice, spotted turtles, frogs, and bullfrogs, so it has plenty of food. Including snakes, these are enough for leopard cats to turn this rice field area, which is almost ten kilometers long and six hundred meters wide, into a hunting ground for leopard cats. When there is enough food, they can use the Maoluo River to hide and rest there. Giving birth is followed by raising the next generation there, so if there is abundant food, it will form a local ethnic group if it has a certain amount.

What did you encounter during the investigation that impressed you?

Yes, our ecological environment has been severely damaged. Many resource recycling units dump garbage in the mountains. They dump the garbage in places where people cannot see it. This has caused great damage to our mountains and forests. I traveled all over Bagua Mountain and found that people were discarding rubbish everywhere. In addition, there were a lot of stray cats and dogs. Some of these cats and dogs were raised by people but were not properly closed, so the cats and dogs ran away from their owners and went into the wild. Others Some of them are abandoned by their owners and thrown into the wild. These dogs always have people to feed them. These dogs breed very quickly in the wild, which is a terrible situation. According to expert estimates, one pair of dogs can give birth to 12 dogs in a year. These dog groups It can grow to 85 in the second year and 588 in the third year. This is very scary. According to official statistics, there are 16,000 stray dogs in Changhua.

May I ask, Teacher Luo, which kind of existential crisis is the most serious for leopard cats?

Currently, the most serious one is dog killing (bitten to death by dogs), and stray cats and dogs in the wild cause the greatest harm to leopard cats. There were a total of 214 leopard cats killed in road kills (killed by cars) from 2011 to 2023. This is very high, right? According to statistics from scholars and experts, the number of the entire group is now about 500, and more than 200 died in 13 years. leopard cats account for almost half of the total number. This is the number that has been reported, and some that have not been reported cannot be counted, but this is not the most serious. The most serious is dog killing, because the number of dogs in Taiwan is very large. Now the official The number is 160,000 dogs. There are many stray dogs outside and some people even specially train dogs to hunt, which poses a great threat to the survival of leopard cats. The proportion of poisonous killing is relatively small and non-immediate, because the poison will slowly accumulate in the body of the leopard cat until it reaches a certain amount, causing the death of the leopard cat.

May I ask Teacher Luo’s advice on how children should protect leopard cat?

What you are currently doing is very good. Tongan’s action plan is to bring the concept of leopard cat conservation to teachers, students or community residents. This is a way to directly contribute to leopard cat conservation; in addition, you must Promote to parents and neighbors not to feed stray cats and dogs to reduce dog killings (bitten to death by dogs), and be sure to slow down when driving through areas with leopard cat hot spots to reduce road killings (killed by cars).

Finally, Teacher Luo also told us that he encountered venomous snakes many times when setting up the camera, and one of them was a cobra. The cobra is the only snake in Taiwan that will actively attack humans. Fortunately, the cobra did not attack him. After the interview, Teacher Luo had to go to the mountain to collect the sensor camera. Seeing that Teacher Luo had spent so much time for leopard cat, I thanked him for taking the time to accept our interview.

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