Dear
Blondie
For ten years, one wild bobcat has raised her kittens in a strip of hills between a California vineyard and Interstate 580. This is her story - and the story of the neighbors who learned to watch her.
The film
Dear Blondie follows a single bobcat through a decade of survival on the edge of suburban California. I first found her when I was 14. She is ten years old now - remarkably old for a wild bobcat - and raising what may be her last litter.
Two of that litter's three kittens are already gone, to the two things that kill urban wildlife most reliably: vehicle collisions, and anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning.
The ground she holds
Blondie's territory sits at the northern tip of the Diablo Range, which runs from the East Bay down toward the Salinas Valley. Hers is the last connected stretch of that habitat before Interstate 580 cuts the corridor off to the north.
Isolated from the wider range, the animals here face inbreeding, falling genetic diversity, and eventual local extinction. It is not wilderness - vineyards give way to strip malls - and she has held on in it for a decade.
Ten years of footage
Ten years of near-daily fieldwork produced footage of behavior that is rarely filmed at all: kittens nursing, hunting squirrels through the tree canopy, a bobcat's curiosity about a hummingbird.
None of it was luck. It came from knowing one animal well enough to anticipate her.
The people who watch her
A loose community formed around Blondie over the years - engineers, retirees, students, neighbors - who logged sightings, shared her movements, and worked out their own etiquette for watching without disturbing.
Their collective record is something no single photographer could have assembled alone. In a time of widening distance from the natural world, one bobcat in an ordinary regional park turned neighbors into community scientists.
After the release
The film will screen in Bay Area schools and community spaces, in partnership with local conservation organizations and science institutions, aimed especially at younger audiences.
Support & recognition
Dear Blondie is supported by the National Geographic Society through its Young Explorer program, by Tri-Valley Conservancy of Livermore, and by Save Mount Diablo, the land trust for the region. The Wildlife Crossing Fund, a wildlife connectivity organization, is the film's fiscal sponsor.
Team
Cameryn Baker
SF-based writer and creative currently with Presidio National Park, whose portfolio revolves around Bay Area wildlife, public transportation, and outdoor recreation.
Dr. Christine Wilkinson
Carnivore ecologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the California Academy of Sciences, studying how carnivores move through human-dominated landscapes in California and Kenya.
Connor Sweeney
Cinematographer, editor, and visual effects artist with over 13 years across creative industries, now focused on documentary storytelling in agriculture and sustainability.
Hannah Eugster
Filmmaker, photographer and science communicator specializing in environmental conservation, making science fun and approachable through short-form storytelling.
Vishal Subramanyan
Award-winning wildlife photographer, videographer, and public speaker. His work has been featured by National Geographic, CNN, NPR, Smithsonian, and the LA Times, and has won Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Monthly updates as the film comes together
- Behind-the-scenes photos and field notes
- Occasional video clips from the cutting room
- First word on the release date and screenings
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