A Documentary Film |
Since I was 14, I’ve been watching a wild bobcat named Blondie in the East Bay Area of California, right up against Interstate 580. In the last decade, she’s raised 22 kittens. Her story is one of extraordinary resilience in an urban landscape. It is also the story of the community that formed around her.

THE FILM
Dear Blondie is a 30-40 minute natural history documentary following Blondie through a decade of survival in a rapidly changing landscape. Now at ten years old – extraordinarily old for a wild bobcat – Blondie is raising what may be her final litter, with two of her three kittens already lost to the threats that face urban wildlife every day: vehicle collisions and anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning.

THE DIABLO RANGE CONNECTION
The Diablo Range of California is incredibly ecologically important. It stretches from the East San Francisco Bay Area all the way to the Salinas Valley Area. However, the area Blondie lives in is the northernmost connected stretch of Diablo Range habitat before Interstate 580 cuts off movement to the north. This makes the local wildlife population especially vulnerable to habitat isolation. Without connectivity to the broader Diablo Range ecosystem, animals like Blondie face inbreeding, reduced genetic diversity, and local extinction. Her territory represents suburban California, where vineyards meet strip malls. Yet she has persisted here across a decade.

UNPRECEDENTED DOCUMENTATION
After a decade of near-daily fieldwork, I’ve been able to film behavioral moments that are rarely witnessed in the wild. From nursing kittens, hunting squirrels in trees, and interacting with hummingbirds, the moments captured were only possible through a decade of learning about this bobcat. 

COMMUNITY SCIENCE AND HUMAN-NATURE CONNECTION
Over the years, a small community formed around Blondie: engineers, retirees, students, and neighbors united by a shared passion for watching Blondie. Together they tracked her movements daily, shared sightings, and developed a collective ethic of respectful observation. The presence of this group produced a behavioral record that would have never been possible to document alone. In a society defined by increasing disconnection from the natural world, Blondie became common ground – proof that a single wild animal in an ordinary regional park can turn neighbors into community scientists and stewards.

SUPPORT AND RECOGNITION
Dear Blondie is supported by the National Geographic Society through the Young Explorer Program. We are also supported by Save Mount Diablo, the local land trust in the region. The Wildlife Crossing Fund, a leading wildlife connectivity organization, serves as the fiscal sponsor for the film.

OUTREACH AND EDUCATION
Following release, the film will be screened in Bay Area schools and community spaces, with the goal of targeting youth audiences to inspire a closer connection to nature. Screenings will be done in partnership with local conservation organizations and science institutions.

PARTNERSHIP
Because this story is rooted in the landscapes, wildlife, and communities of suburban California, we are seeking partners who believe in conserving and connecting with local nature. Blondie’s story is, at its heart, a story about what happens when people pay attention to the wildlife in their own backyard – and what becomes possible when communities come together around a shared wild neighbor. We would love to tell this story together.

The Wildlife Crossing Fund is proud to help support Dear Blondie, an important story about the importance of connectivity for wildlife.