The Taipei City Government yesterday held a Buddhist memorial service in commemoration of the city's dead animals to mark the approach of the Ghost Festival.
The Ghost Festival, which is the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, falls on Sept. 2 this year.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
This is the third year the city held such an event and the first time the event has been officiated by the city mayor.
Addressing the ceremony at the Neihu animal shelter yesterday afternoon, Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"The East and West share very different views about the notion of death. Buddhists believe in reincarnation, or the process of coming into existence as a different mortal creature in the next life. We hope today's ceremony will help those animals which died over the past year from various causes to enjoy a better life in their next life."
Ma also praised the shelter's achievement over the past year.
"The purpose of its existence is not to kill more stray animals but to help them find a suitable home. Although there's always room for improvement, it's done a pretty good job," he said.
The Animal Protection Law (
Statistics show that the number of stray dogs in the city has decreased from 70,000 in 1998 to 50,000 in 1999, and from 30,000 last year to 18,000 this year.
Last year's neutering rate for domestic cats and dogs reached 31 percent, the highest in the country. The city's animal adoption rate is also the highest in the nation -- up from 35 percent in 1999 to 42 percent last year.
The city also had the nation's second-highest number of registered dogs in 2000 -- recorded at 91,982. The number of the city's stray dogs which are put to sleep is the fifth-lowest among the nation's 23 counties and cities -- about 800 per month or 10,000 per year.
Lin Chin-chung (林進忠), director of the city's Animal Sanitation Quarantine Office (動物衛生檢驗所), said that many reasons contributed to the decrease in the number of stray dogs in the city.
"We see more people interested in adopting stray animals and becoming aware of the importance of neutering and registering their pets. Putting animals to sleep accounts for only a small portion of the reduction in the number," Lin said.
According to Lin, the shelter and the city's 154 veterinary hospitals have temporarily sheltered about 8,000 stray dogs as of July, about 2,000 were put to sleep or died of natural causes and about 3,000 were adopted.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique