Only three groups of hunters were allowed to enter the wildlife reserve during a 10-day period that ends tomorrow under the Forestry Bureau's experimental plan, and our group was the last one. While in the wildlife refuge, shots from other hunting parties could be heard coming from outside the reserve's boundary. By eavesdropping on walkie-talkie frequencies it was evident that at least half a dozen hunting parties were prowling through the valley.
The members of our party attributed their less-then-spectacular catch to the previous groups having scared off all the animals from the reserve. Indeed, the night-long trudge on Tuesday yielded nothing, with the only hints of animals in the forest coming from the echoes of other hunting parties' shots.
Exiting the Danda refuge bleary-eyed and filthy after a second night of swinging machetes to cut paths through the forest, we were greeted by a surreal welcome committee of police officers, park rangers, officials from the Forestry Bureau, a few journalists, as well as volunteer university students in stark-white lab coats wearing surgical gloves to inspect the two dead muntjacs.
As Song and A-hui answered questions about the circumstances of each killing and their observations of the wildlife in the forest, the animals were weighed, measured and gutted to confirm their food sources and to extract DNA samples.
While the animals were being checked out, Wang Ying (王穎), a life science professor at National Taiwan Normal University and an outspoken advocate of the scheme, explained: "With better management we can hopefully reach the habitat's wildlife carrying capacity. Controlled hunting might help reach that goal."
Perhaps. But there have been dissenting voices from animal rights activists and religious groups.
For their part, the hunters are openly dismissive of the moral and political issues raised by the plan and watched the hubbub of the animal inspection from the shade of an adjacent shack. They said they looked forward to getting home for the climactic ritual of the hunt -- dividing up the meat for distribution between them, which would take place about an hour later back in Shuanglong. This is how the hunt had been conducted for centuries, one explained, and that was simply how it should be.
The captured muntjac doe, meanwhile, had somehow escaped unnoticed.
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