Local Aborigines call her "Bear Mother" and the media have dubbed her "Taiwan's Jane Goodall" after the primatologist whose work in Africa made her a household name worldwide.
Hwang Mei-hsiu (
Researching the bears, which she began for her doctoral dissertation, has led the 37-year-old to the most remote and isolated regions of Taiwan and at times has put her in life-threatening situations.
PHOTO: AFP
"To study bears I have to capture them alive to gather first-hand information, and people thought it horrifying for a girl to chase bears," said the slim, energetic and eloquent biologist.
"My family were also worried because nobody had done it before," she said in a recent interview.
Hwang worked on the small mongoose for her master's degree in Taiwan and switched to the bears for her doctorate at the University of Minnesota in 1996.
"It didn't cross my mind at first to research bears but I came to realize it's a challenging goal worth pursuing," she said. "There is just not enough attention paid to the animal."
To most people, including skilled Aboriginal hunters, her research seemed ambitious but impractical due to the rarity of Formosan black bears, also called moon bears for the pale yellow crescent across their chests.
There is no official figure on the number of black bears that have survived years of hunting and natural disasters, though conservationists such as Hwang estimate there are only several hundred at most left in the wild.
Hwang and her small team -- which includes Aboriginal guides -- began tracking the bears in 1998, knowing that traces of the animal's existence had been found in coastal and central mountain forests.
She had learned bear trapping skills while studying in Minnesota, where she tracked the animals in Voyageurs National Park, but she soon found the task was even more challenging in Taiwan.
"In the US, bears struggle less when trapped, but here bears seem to know that death awaits them once they encounter humans and they fight for their lives to get away," said Hwang, an assistant professor at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology's Institute of Wildlife Conservation.
After a two-week mountain stakeout in October 1998 during which she battled a typhoon and rough living conditions, Hwang became the first researcher in Taiwan to capture bears in the wild, fit them with radio transmitters and release them to monitor their movements.
"It was an extremely exciting and nerve-wracking moment -- I worried for the safety of the team and the bear," she recalls as she describes how the first black bear she trapped fought viciously, roaring and jumping at her as it shook off half a dozen anesthetic needles before finally being subdued.
The 149cm-tall female, which was named "Dilmu," or "bear" in the Bunun language, had lost a paw in what Hwang believes was an earlier poaching attempt.
In 1989, Taiwan banned the hunting of Formosan black bears, which are commonly known as Asiatic black bears, although some local biologists are trying to establish that those in Taiwan are a subspecies.
The Formosan black bear is categorized as endangered in Taiwan, while the Asiatic black bear is listed as a "vulnerable species" by the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN).
Asiatic back bears are found across Asia, including Taiwan, Vietnam and India, and as far afield as Russia, though the total population is estimated at less than 50,000.
Despite the government ban, experts believe poaching continues because a bear can fetch up to NT$150,000 (US$4,550) on the black market.
"The misconception that a bear's paw is a delicacy and gall bladder [produces] a precious medicine is deeply rooted in Chinese culture," Hwang said.
She cites an old saying that "one cannot have fish and bear's paw at the same time" -- which refers to a traditional belief that fish and bear's paw are both delicacies.
"Old habits die hard," she said.
Before the hunting ban, bear's paw could be found on the menus of so-called "bush meat" restaurants touting dishes made of wild and rare animals from the mountains.
Bear bile, cruelly and painfully syphoned from the bear's gall bladder, is used as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine for alleged "detoxing and calming effects," though the claims are of dubious merit.
Under Taiwan's Wildlife Conservation Law, the hunting and killing of protected animals carries a maximum prison term of five years.
Hwang said her team proved poaching was still rampant in the mountains when eight of the 15 bears they caught between 1998 and 2000 in the Tafen (
"They lived in the back country where most Aboriginal hunters would not go but still they couldn't escape the misfortune," said Hwang, who co-chairs the IUCN's Asiatic Black Bear Expert Team.
She believes that her work is vital to raising the profile of the bears so that Taiwanese people are made aware of their plight.
"I think if Taiwanese people are unmoved by the fact that the black bears are on the verge of extinction, what would it matter to them? But I don't believe Taiwan is a cruel and hopeless place. I believe people can reject bush meat and help stop poaching," she said.
"There is still a chance to save the black bears from nearing extinction. I have to speak out to draw public attention to the bears, to create an inner voice in people that tells them to help conserve the endangered animal," she said.
Hwang noted the recent public frenzies surrounding the appearance at the Taipei Zoo of king penguins from Japan and koalas from Australia, and said she hoped that Taiwanese would develop an equal appreciation for their indigenous animals.
"Many people know pandas are endangered but they know very little about the protected animals in our own country. People should be more concerned about local animals instead of worshipping the imported ones all the time," she said.
As dangerous as bear-chasing sounds, the life-and-death moment Hwang faced did not involve a bear or bad weather conditions. She was hit by a falling rock and slipped down a cliff before being rescued by her Bunun guide Ison Lin at the end of her research in Yushan in December 2000.
"This experience reminded me to be humble in front of nature and that how fortunate I was that I didn't run into serious troubles before in the wilderness. I have to be more careful as I will regret forever should anything happen to my team during field studies," she said.
Hwang's hard work in the mountains eventually paid off, as she not only finished her dissertation but published a book in Taiwan on her bear-chasing journey. The Conservation and Research of Formosan Black Bears Web site she set up receives hundreds of hits each day.
Local media have also acknowledged her accomplishments and dubbed her "Taiwan's Jane Goodall" -- but Hwang shrugs off the comparison.
"I think anyone who is in my line of work is a Jane Goodall and I don't want to flatter myself, I want to walk my own road," she said.
Another rewarding part of her mission was the approval and acceptance of the Aboriginal people who she says have selflessly helped her in the mountains.
Hwang has been given the name Ali Duma (Ali is the name of a folk hero and duma means bear) by Bunun elders and is fondly referred to as "Bear Mother" by the Aboriginal community.
"I once asked an Aboriginal hunter if he was going to hunt bears again and he said no because now he knew a girl who was working so hard to chase after bears," she said, adding that she planned to continue her work on black bears for many years to come.
"There is still a long way to go to conserve black bears. I am doing whatever I can and it would only get worse if nothing is done," she said. "I am making a difference and there is hope that I can make more."
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