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.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS