Taiwan’s only pheasant-tailed jacana conservation park in Tainan County was one of the lesser-known of Typhoon Morakot’s many victims.
Located in Guantian Township (官田), the Pheasant-tailed Jacana Ecological Education Center suffered its worst damage since it was built 10 years ago to promote the conservation of the protected water bird — nicknamed the “water chestnut bird” locally because it inhabits water chestnut ponds.
Pheasant-tailed jacanas in the 15-hectare park had built more than 30 nests and laid nearly 100 eggs, of which about 60 had hatched, just before the typhoon struck.
Almost all perished in Morakot’s floodwaters, volunteers at the center said on Saturday.
The center was encouraged to discover, however, that some of the birds that fled the park during the typhoon returned several days later, and the surviving birds built 10 new nests and laid some 40 eggs, a sign that mating patterns had recovered.
Forestry Bureau figures showed there were about 200 Pheasant-tailed jacanas in Taiwan last year. With such a small population, the wild birds are listed as a protected species by the Wildlife Conservation Act.
World-renowned wildlife conservationist Jane Goodall visited the center in November as part of her efforts to witness Taiwan’s achievements in the conservation of the wild bird.
It was the second time she had visited the center.
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
RSS