Animal conservationists and legislators yesterday slammed a 10-day trial hunting project carried out in Danda, Nantou County, by the Council of Agriculture (COA), saying that the research project mistakenly justifies human acts of violence.
On Dec. 15, the council's Forestry Bureau launched the trial hunting project, which is aimed at finding better means of managing wildlife habitats. The project is open only to Bunun Aboriginals, who have to be trained before being awarded permits to hunt many kinds of wild animals, including three protected species -- the Formosan barking deer, Formosan serow and Formosan sambar.
At a press conference yesterday at the Legislative Yuan, conservationists lashed out at council officials, saying the trial would be the beginning of the legalization of a cruel and dangerous hunting culture in Taiwan.
"Officials should not regard wildlife as an exploitable resource. Causing agony to animals should not be a form of recreation for human beings," Buddhist Master Shih Chao-hui (釋昭慧) from the Life Conservationist Association said.
In the project, the number of animals hunters are allowed to shoot has been strictly limited based on research by Wang Ying (
"We will determine the feasibility of combining Aboriginal people's participation with the management of habitats for wild animals," said Fang Kuo-yun (方國運), director of the bureau's conservation division.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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