The recent deaths of endangered black-faced spoonbills in Chiku Lagoon, Tainan County, has sparked hot debate about Taiwan's disappearing wetlands and its inability to prevent the spread of disease among birds.
As of Friday, when Legislators Su Ying-kwei (
"The lack of habitat for the spoonbills resulted in the spread of botulism," Su said.
The loss represents more than 9 percent of the spoonbill population in Taiwan this winter, with Taiwanese birdwatchers counting 705 birds arriving in the country for their cold-weather migration.
It is estimated that there are only 1000 spoonbills worldwide.
According to Su, the lack of food in Taiwan's wetlands forced spoonbills to hunt for food at nearby fish farms.
However, cold fronts that hit Taiwan in early December caused a sharp drop in temperature that led to the appearance of botulism toxin in the fish, which was passed on to the spoonbills.
The black-faced spoonbill was first spotted in Taiwan in 1893 when a British scientist recorded its appearance in Anping, Tainan County.
Between 1925 and 1938, Japanese bird watchers recorded an average of about 50 black-faced spoonbills visiting Anping every year.
However, local scientists and conservationists in Taiwan did not conduct comprehensive research on the bird until 1988, when ornithologists in Hong Kong warned of the dangers of disappearing wetlands and the impact it could have on spoonbill numbers.
Each year, the birds leaves their breeding sites in North Korea, flying all the way down to southeastern China, Taiwan and even Vietnam.
In 1988, it was estimated that the spoonbill population numbered 288 and the estuary of Tsengwen River in Tainan County was the bird's largest habitat. From October to April, Hong Kong birdwatchers said, about 190 black-faced spoonbills wintered at wetlands in Taiwan.
In 1992, the Council of Agriculture (COA) listed the bird on the endangered species register and ended hunting of the bird in Taiwan.
In 1994, a proposal to build the Pinnan Industrial Complex, which was proposed by two petrochemical and steel-making companies, Tuntex Group and Yieh-loong Co, sparked a movement to protect the endangered bird. The project would have taken over part of the lagoon for factory construction.
Since the suspension of the development project, Chihku Lagoon has been turned into a fascinating nature spot that annually attracts tens of thousands of tourists who are eager to witness the beauty of these rare birds.
As the spoonbill population increases, Su said, Taiwan's efforts in protecting wetlands remained too limited to guarantee the preservation of the birds' wintering sites.
"Obviously, the ecological reserve is not large enough to ensure sources of food for hundreds of black-faced spoonbills," Su said.
Tainan County Government designates only an area covering 300 hectares of wetlands as the bird's main habitat.
Su said that he would persuade his colleagues to provide an additional NT$1.6 billion budget proposal to encourage local governments to turn state-owned coastal lands on the west coast into wetland preserves.
Chiau Wen-yan (邱文彥), president of Wetlands Taiwan, told the Taipei Times that the recent spoonbill deaths exposed the necessity of rezoning the ecological reserve.
Chiau said that fish farms near Chihku Lagoon should be used as buffer zones to ensure sources of food for the endangered bird.
"However, fishermen deserve appropriate compensation for their cooperation," Chiau said.
Fishermen's opposition was made clear on Dec. 25, when 54 illegal stable fish nets were forced to be removed under an order from Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) based on the Wildlife Conservation Law.
Only two fishermen reportedly agreed to work with Su without asking for compensation.
Meanwhile, to prevent the spread of disease, Su also demanded a long-term sanitation project on a 2,000-hectare area, part of which is the main habitat of the endangered bird.
Local authority mobilized hundreds of volunteer firemen, conservationists and local residents to wade through the chilly waters of the lagoon to collect bodies of dead fish and animals.
"What we need now is money as well as manpower," Lee Tuey-chih (
Lee said that local conservationists had been eager to know the real cause of deaths but comprehensive studies on that remained unavailable.
Moreover, officials of Tainan County Livestock Disease Control Center, requesting help from the COA, said that a lack of anti-C. botulinum serum resulted in a delay in rescuing sick spoonbills.
The COA waited until Thursday before it set up a national task force, which will seek international assistance and strengthen domestic ecological conservation, to tackle the botulism epidemic.
The establishment was pushed by legislators, bird watchers, wetlands protectors, ecological conservationists and environmentalists.
Through DPP Legislator Eugene Jao (趙永清), the COA contacted Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases last week. It is expected that eight bottles of anti-C. botulinum serum, which costs NT$150,000 per unit, will be shipped to the Tainan County Livestock Disease Control Center this week.
Yang Jiao-yen (楊嬌豔), assistant to Jao, told the Taipei Times that Shunji Kozaki (小崎俊司), a veterinary professor of Osaka Prefecture University, and Takeda Masato (
Yang said that the institute had promised to purchase 50 bottles of the serum for Taiwan from a national research center in Lanzhou, China, in order to efficiently tackle the epidemic.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
A 23-year-old Taichung man vowed to drink more water after his heavy consumption of sugary tea landed him in hospital with a kidney infection and sepsis. The man, surnamed Lin (林), used to drink two cups of half-sugar oolong tea while working at a food stall, where he often had to wait a long time before urinating. Lin developed kidney stones and noticed blood in his urine, but ignored the issue after taking medication for three days. A month later, he went to the emergency room after experiencing a recurring fever and was diagnosed with a kidney infection that led to sepsis, landing