South Korean Sara Choi wasn't planning to stay in Taiwan when she came to study Mandarin years ago, but her love for cats and frustration about the treatment of stray cats here eventually led her to settle down in Taipei and launch a campaign to help them.
At first she took in stray cats she found in her neighborhood, some of which had never lived with humans.
Eventually, she came upon the idea of founding the Taipei Feral Cat Protection Association last year and was happy when the Taipei City Government recently started handling the stray cat issue through the Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) method.
TNR, which has been promoted as a humane alternative to euthanasia for managing and reducing stray cat populations in other countries, was introduced to Taiwan a couple of years ago by animal rights groups, and the city government initiated a trial TNR program last year in Da-an District with the help of Meetpets.com, a Web site dedicated to building a network for helping stray animals.
Instead of capturing stray cats and impounding them, the city government now traps and neuters them and returns them to where they were found.
Yen I-feng (
After a successful trial at Ching-an and Hsinlung boroughs in Daan District last year, the city government is expanding the experiment to six more boroughs in Wenshan, Daan, Lungyuan and Shilin districts this year with a goal of neutering 200 stray cats.
More than 12,500 stray cats currently roam the streets of Taipei City, and the number exceeds the estimated 4,000 stray dogs on the city's streets, according to the institute.
The boroughs chosen by the institute suffered from serious stray cat problems, Yen said.
"The TNR approach has proven effective for controlling the number of stray cats successfully. Stray cats pose no threat to the general public. In fact, they can benefit a neighborhood by decreasing the number of rats," he added.
Although many residents have been cooperating with the TNR method, Yen said that many borough chiefs had declined to join the trial project and attributed this to the idea being a new concept.
With a budget of NT$950,000 this year for the TNR project, the city government will focus its efforts on training volunteers, informing residents about the program and inviting veterans to join, Yen said.
"Most importantly, we don't want our good motives to inadvertently upset people. We need to educate volunteers to feed stray cats with only cat food and clean up, so that residents can tolerate stray cats in their neighborhoods," he added.
While agreeing to cooperate with the city government on the TNR project, borough chief of Hsinchang Borough Chang Hsiao-yuan (
It would be easier to promote the TNR method if the city government provided some subsidies for volunteers to encourage their hard work, Chang said.
Choi, whose association has neutered hundreds of cats and aims at finding homes for part of them, lauded the city government for adopting the approach, noting that the TNR method had become an international trend.
"The TNR concept is a humane method to control the number of stray cats while respecting their lives. People in Taiwan tend to either spoil their pets or else hate animals. They should learn that the best way to treat animals is to respect them and live with them peacefully," she said.
While continuing to expand the TNR project, Yen said the institute was planning to adopt the approach to solve the stray dog issue.
Because stray dogs are more likely to attack people after being released, Yen said the institute might initiate a TNR trial involving training dogs as neighborhood watch dogs and releasing them in closed communities first.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai