Sometimes when I get on my rented scooter, I become stricken with indecision about where to go, despite having planned things out weeks in advance; looking at those high, forested, uninhabited mountains, there are just too many directions that I want to set off in.

This time, however, I stuck with the plan: Head south down Highway 11 towards Taimali (太麻里) township, enter the Taimali River Gorge, and from there access Tawu Mountain Nature Reserve (大武山自然保護區). More than 20 years ago, this preserve was set up after a year of studies between Taiwanese biologists and world-famous field biologists Alan Rabinowitz and George Schaller (who was the character 'GS' in Peter Matthiessen's book "The Snow Leopard").

The park was finally granted protected status when the aforementioned wildlife defenders met with former President Lee Tung-hui, who was enthusiastic about conserving an area that might still be home to the Formosan Clouded Leopard.

Black bears, leopard cats, flying squirrels, serow, muntjacs, macaques and snakes inhabit Tawu to this day. Formosan otters swam the rivers of the gorges of Tawu in the past, but they were wiped out for their beautiful pelts. The question which cannot be answered with certainty is whether or not the clouded leopard still hunts in the remote mountain forests of these valleys, devouring monkeys, pouncing on barking deer, and howling like phantoms in the night.

Definitive answers are hard to come by, and camera traps have produced shots of other mammals, but not the beautiful cat they were looking for. It should be noted, however, that even in areas where they are known to occur in relative abundance – such as Danum Valley in Sabah, Malaysia, and Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia - that these elusive cats are almost never captured on film, not even with motion-triggered cameras. I ask (ridiculously) almost every local in Taitung or Hualien (花蓮) I meet, in Chinese: "does Taiwan still have clouded leopards?" 95% of them answer an astounding "yes!" Thus, I return to Taitung again and again, hiking and river-tracing the gorges with a special feeling of enchantment knowing that maybe … just maybe, the yun-bow (雲 豹) still prowls the misty crags of this amazing county.

In the past, permits were required to enter the reserve, but strangely, none are needed today, with the result being that jeeps and other 4X4 vehicles now make their way up the dry section of the Taimali riverbed with impunity. Just how far one can drive back, I am not certain, as I only made it about two hours in on my motorbike due to the rugged terrain.

Unlike the Chihben (知本) Gorge, which is much narrower and cut with numerous waterfalls, the Taimali valley is wide and almost desolate in appearance. Loggers respect the trees, but do hunters revere the wildlife here? Certainly, there is nobody on guard anymore to deter poaching, and a Google search turns up many discouraging stories, one of which calls Tawu Mountain Nature Reserve "a private hunting ground."

To really get up in the reserve and have any chance of seeing its wildlife, one needs a large, multi-terrain vehicle, such as a jeep 4X4. These vehicles have knocked over the signs proclaiming the official status of the area, but the paths are by now so well entrenched in the dry riverbed that one would be doing very little harm by following in on them. With a jeep, you could go in for miles and miles and find yourself on the brink of terra incognita.

From there, an expedition could be launched, up into the highest mountains and down into the folds of unnamed drainages and river valleys (some of which can be espied if you take the train from Kaohsiung to Taitung in the afternoon), and if you posted up quietly by a stream night after night with your camera ready, keeping still with your ears open, you just might witness a Formosan Clouded Leopard creep down to the water, sniff the air, take a cautious look around, and lick up an evening refreshment from a gurgling mountain brook.

That expedition, however, is for another time. Until then, I will continue to scan the Internet and the newspapers in hopes of seeing a report about the most mysterious of all big cats – the Clouded Leopard. If anyone sees one, please e-mail me at:

gregmccann1@yahoo.com