Animal rights activists and environmentalists petitioned in front of the Council of Agriculture yesterday, urging it to take concrete action to save the Eastern Taiwan Strait humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis), an indigenous species of dolphin whose genetic makeup confirms that it is a subpopulation of the Indo-Pacific humpback variety.
The group, including Democratic Progressive Party legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) as well as the Wild At Heart Legal Defense Association (WaH), launched the petition in response to a decision made by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on Tuesday to list the dolphins as “critically endangered” on its 2008 Red List of Threatened Species.
“Critically endangered” is the highest threat level on the list before a species becomes extinct, WaH specialist Chen Huan-yu (陳奐宇) said, adding that a survey last year had shown that fewer than 100 dolphins remained on Taiwan’s side of the strait.
“Although the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins are prevalent in many parts of the Pacific — including China and Hong Kong — the eastern Taiwan Strait variety is a special subgroup that is characterized by bluish gray spots all over the body during adolescent years, which then turn completely white in adulthood,” Chen said.
“The trait is not observed in other Indo-Pacific humpbacks and is a genetic distinction only seen in the Taiwanese variety,” he said.
The animals face an imminent threat of extinction because of water and noise pollution in their habitat, as well human activity, Chen said.
“Because the dolphins live in a 5km stretch of coastline between Miaoli and Chiayi, industrial zones including the Mailiao (麥寮) industrial area, Tongsiao (通宵) and Taichung coal-burning power plants, as well as Changpin Industrial Park have had a serious impact on their environment,” Chen said.
“In addition, fishing in the areas also hurts the animals and many have scratches and cuts from fishing nets or other manmade devices,” Chen said.
“When the dolphins were first discovered in 2002, their population was about 200. Within five years, their population had halved. If no conservation efforts are made, in 10 years there may only be 25 of them left, which would make them functionally extinct,” Chen said.
At a press release issued after the meeting, the council said it was determined to protect the rare animals, promising that an interdisciplinary meeting that would include academics, animal protection groups and governmental representatives, would be held within a month.
“We filed a request with the council more than six months ago. We are happy to see that it is finally making concrete plans to address this problem,” Chen said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater