About a dozen people from a community college and an animal rights group gathered at the Council of Agriculture yesterday to present a petition urging the council to put an immediate stop to the slaughter of poultry in traditional markets.
Students from Taipei City Wenshan Community College, accompanied by college president Cheng Hsiu-chuan (鄭秀娟), teacher and lawyer Tien Meng-chieh (田蒙潔) and representatives from the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST), asked the council to explain why a proclamation prohibiting the slaughter of poultry in traditional markets that was to be announced in April 2008 was first postponed and finally abandoned last year.
EAST executive director Wu Hung (朱增宏) said the Executive Yuan announced a policy -prohibiting all poultry slaughter and selling of live poultry in traditional markets in August 2006 — a policy that should have come into force in April 2008 and for which related government agencies had planned supporting budgets.
Photo: CNA
However, the council postponed the implementation of the policy in 2008 for another two years, saying preparations had been insufficient, Wu said.
The council then changed its policy last year by announcing that poultry could be slaughtered at registered market stands, he said.
The advocates said the prohibition related not just to animal welfare, but was also a way of preventing the spread of avian influenza and ensuring sanitary conditions.
Tien said the new proclamation violated the Animal Industry Act (畜牧法) and the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法), and that according to the Administrative Procedure Act (行政程序法), when a proclamation is in violation of the law, it should be invalidated.
Peng Ming-hsing (彭明興), deputy director of the Meat Inspection Division at the council’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, accepted the petition and promised to make a formal response within a month.
Responding to a student question as to why prohibition could not be enforced, Peng said the council had considered many elements, including the receding risks of an epidemic, traditional customs favoring fresh native chicken meat and the fact that certain big cities, such as New York City, still allow the slaughter of fresh poultry.
Council data from last year show there are 62 registered poultry slaughterhouses in Taiwan, which handle about 120 million chickens every year.
Moreover, the council provided subsidies of NT$4.18 million (US$138,000) to 13 slaughterhouses from 2002 to 2004 and NT$216 million to 22 slaughterhouses from 2006 and 2007.
The council has made an effort to support the establishment of legal slaughterhouses and conducted regular examinations on the more than 1,000 registered poultry slaughter stands to ensure the strictest sanitary standards were maintained, Peng said.
He added that there had been a clear change in consumer preferences because the number of registered stands had dropped to 1,163 in September, or 523 stands less than in May.
The animal rights advocates said they would consider taking legal action if the formal response from the council failed to address their concerns.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS