The Yushan National Park Headquarters’ Black Bear Research team has released a rare photograph of an enormous bear, estimated at 160kg, the team said.
The photo was taken in the park late last year by Hwang Mei-hsiu (黃美秀), a professor at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s Institute of Wildlife Conservation. It was taken with an automatic infrared camera in Hualien County’s Dafen (大分) area, a critical habitat for the endangered species.
According to the park headquarters, the bear was an adult black bear and was almost twice as large as other Formosan black bears, which generally weigh about 90kg.
Photo: CNA
Park officials, citing a recent study by Hwang and her team on the Formosan black bear, said that the number of times they have found evidence of bear activity in Yushan park this year is the -second-highest on record.
The study also included an estimate on the availability of acorns, a favorite food of the bear. The amount of acorns produced in the park this year was also second only to record year 2008, meaning the bears have lots of them to eat.
Officials hailed this as a sign that research and conservation efforts are working.
Photo provided courtesy of the Yushan National Park Management Office
However, with the foraging and activity area of the black bears growing, the possibility of contact with humans is increasing. It is possible that human actions that provoke a mother bear and her cubs could trigger retaliation from the bears, the park’s Preservation Office director Su Chih-fung (蘇志峰) said, adding that people living in mountain areas and visitors to Yushan should be on their guard.
Su recalled how years ago a black bear encountered -preservation personnel at a mountain bend and the encounter resulted in both the bear and the personnel fleeing in opposite directions. This suggests that black bears are also afraid of people, he said. That being said, people -encountering black bears should still try to leave as quickly as -possible, Su said, adding that in such circumstances one should not resort to playing possum or climbing a tree because Formosan black bears would not be fooled.
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai