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Hau to ink agreement on animal swap with Shanghai

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chin Li-fang, crouching, feeds lemurs with bananas during a visit to Shanghai Wild Animal Park, China, with Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin, second right, and other city councilors yesterday. PHOTO: CNA

Taipei and Shanghai were expected to forge a pact last night on exchanges over rare animal conservation, including swapping animals as gifts and know-how in animal care and reproduction.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) was to pay a visit to the Shanghai Wild Animals Park yesterday to gain a better understanding of how the Shanghai Zoo takes care of its pandas.

During the visit, Taipei Zoo officials who are accompanying Hau on a five-day visit to Shanghai, were expected to ink an agreement on rare animal conservation exchanges between the two cities.

Under the agreement — scheduled to take effect next year — Taipei would give orangutans, white-handed gibbons and sun bears to Shanghai as gifts, while in return Shanghai would send snub-nosed monkeys, Chinese alligators and lesser pandas.

Meanwhile, Lin Hua-ching (林華慶), director of Taipei Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation Research Center, said the two giant pandas that China had promised as gifts to Taiwan were unlikely to arrive in September as initially planned.

Lin said that several factors were behind the delay, including the impact of the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, where the Wolong giant panda reserve is located, and high temperatures that would make it difficult for the pandas to adapt to their new environment.

He said the pair would probably arrive in November or December.

Lin denied speculation that officials at the Wolong reserve would meet the mayor and Taipei Zoo officials in Shanghai to “make a decision on Wolong’s gift of the two pandas to Taipei City.”

He said that many cities around Taiwan had expressed a strong interest in housing the pandas and that it was up to China to decide which city would receive the animals.

“China will assess the suitability of the cities based on the environment, facilities and other conditions,” Lin said.

Hau and his delegation of Taipei City Government officials and councilors arrived on Monday.

The mayor, Taiwan’s first elected municipal chief to travel to China, is in Shanghai to witness the signing of an agreement confirming Taipei’s participation in World Expo Shanghai 2010, scheduled to be held from May 1 through Oct. 31.

Hau is scheduled to meet Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng (韓正) today to witness the signing of the agreement.

Business tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of the Hon Hai Group and who has promised to build Taipei City’s pavilion at the expo, will also attend the signing ceremony.

Gou signed an accord with Hau in Taipei on Sunday stipulating that an education foundation under the Hon Hai Group would plan, fund, construct and operate the pavilion. The project has a price tag of NT$300 million (US$9.87 million).

During his stay in Shanghai, Hau visited a development project intended to turn Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport into a multiple transportation hub, which could serve as a model for the future modernization of Songshan Airport in Taipei.

With cross-strait flights set to begin next month, the city has been mulling plans to revamp the aging airport.
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