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Tainan birds nose in on the Internet

Bird lovers and conservationists worldwide can now observe endangered black-faced spoonbills in their natural habitat anytime via a newly-completed Web site, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said yesterday.

The birds are currently nesting in Chiku Lagoon, part of the Tsengwen River estuary in Tainan County.

Yesterday morning, the council was connected to a Web site developed by the Tainan County Government.

The county government has also launched a two-month festival celebrating the conservation of the endangered bird species on Dec. 27.

COA officials said the "Happy Online" (黑琵線上) service would transport Web surfers and conservationists to the lagoon, where black-faced spoonbills hunt for food, bathe and play.

"Happy" sounds similar to the shortened Mandarin word for the bird.

The Web site connection ceremony was presided over jointly by COA secretary-general Chen Shih-hsien (陳世賢) in Taipei and Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) and Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) in Tainan County.

Su said it was the second time the county had held such a festival, which stresses the importance of preserving the endan-gered bird and fragile ecological systems.

"All bird-watchers can closely observe the bird without carrying cameras and trudging all the way to Chiku," Su said.

According to Su, more than two-thirds of the nation's black-faced spoonbills winter in the coastal stretch of Chiku Township, making the estuary one of the nation's most precious classrooms for teaching ecological conservation.

"We in Tainan are not only proud of the estuary but also willing to take responsibility for keeping it from being destroyed," he said.

When connecting to the Web site (http://happy.tainan.gov.tw), visitors will be greeted by Su, and after clicking a "Happy Online" sidebar, an animated county commissioner takes the guest on a virtual tour from urban areas to the more remote Chiku Lagoon. Then, a real-time window is opened to show what the spoonbills are doing.

Su hoped the site would connect not only remote Chiku Lagoon to the rest of the world but also people to their feelings for the natural world.

As of yesterday, a total of 712 of the rare migratory birds had arrived in Chiku. Conservationists said that the bird count was the highest in three years, larger than both the 707 recorded late last year and the 601 posted at the end of 2001.

A total of 1,069 spoonbills were counted in a global population survey conducted in January last year, conservationists said.

Starting from Dec. 9 in 2002, 90 black-faced spoonbills in Chiku had been struck down by botulism, of which 73 died.

So far, no evidence has emerged to indicate there had been a sharp drop in the bird's overall numbers.

The issue could only be meaningfully discussed after a population survey to be conducted later this month, the conservationists said.
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