While many people may be tempted to take their pets outside for a sunbath after washing the animal, the Kaohsiung City Government warned yesterday that the practice could be illegal.
In a press release, the Kaohsiung Municipal Institute for Animal Health urged people not to dry their pets under direct sunlight during the summer, saying that the practice was “inappropriate” and “violated the Animal Protection Act [動物保護法].”
The institute said leaving pets in a car under the sun while pet owners temporarily left the vehicle was also considered a violation of the act.
The institute did not specify which articles of the law were being used to ban the practices.
However, Article 5 of the act obliges pet owners to ensure the physical safety of their animal, appropriate ventilation when a pet is left in a vehicle, the amount of sunlight they are exposed to and the temperature and cleanliness of their living environment.
Violators who cause their animal physical injury or death can be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000 and may have their names publicized, the act stipulates.
The institute said that like humans, pets exposed to direct sunlight can suffer heat stroke, especially in the high temperatures Taiwan has experienced recently.
“If pet owners are careless and expose their pets to direct sunlight or keep them in an environment without proper ventilation, animals can get heat stroke. Without emergency assistance, the animal could go into a coma and die,” the institute said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS