A Documentary Film |
For over a decade, a wild bobcat named Blondie has been raising litters of kittens in in the East Bay Area of California – at the northernmost edge of connected Diablo Range habitat before Interstate 580. Her story is one of extraordinary resilience. 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 one of California’s most rapidly changing urban-wildland landscapes. 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 East Bay Area of California occupies a critical ecological position: 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 is not pristine wilderness – it is suburban California, where vineyards meet strip malls and wildlife corridors thread between subdivisions. Yet she has persisted here across a decade, raising 22 kittens across 8 litters.

UNPRECEDENTED DOCUMENTATION
Dear Blondie represents the most comprehensive filmmaking and behavioral documentation ever undertaken of a single wild bobcat. Over ten years of daily field observation, the production has accumulated thousands of photographs and hours of intimate behavioral footage that has never been filmed before. This depth of access – only possible through years of patient, non-intrusive presence – has produced what is likely the most detailed bobcat footage ever captured.

COMMUNITY SCIENCE AND HUMAN-NATURE CONNECTION
Over the years, a small community formed around Blondie: engineers, retirees, students, and neighbors united by a shared attachment to one animal. Together they tracked her movements daily, shared sightings, and developed a collective ethic of respectful observation. The sustained, collective presence of this group produced a behavioral record no single researcher could have assembled alone – documenting rarely observed behaviors, tracking litter survival, and recording how one bobcat navigated a fragmented urban landscape across a decade. 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 reach Bay Area schools and community spaces targeting 500+ students across 10 regional screenings in the first five months, each paired with guided nature walks in local open spaces. A freely available toolkit connecting the film to place-based conservation education will be distributed to schools and land trusts regionally, and the film will be made freely accessible on public platforms for ongoing educational use.

PARTNERSHIP
Because this story is rooted in the landscapes, wildlife, and communities of suburban California, we are seeking
partners who believe that local nature is worth protecting. Blondie’s story is, at its heart, a story about what happens when people pay sustained 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.