An animal rescue group on Thursday accused National Beigang Senior High School of setting a bad example for its students by calling for all stray dogs to be rounded up indiscriminately, regardless of their behavior.
According to its Facebook post, the Animal Rescue Team Taiwan received complaints from several of the school’s faculty members and students claiming that the dean, Tsai Mang-feng (蔡孟峰), had announced during a flag-raising ceremony on Jan. 7 that people should not feed stray dogs and that the school had asked the Yunlin County Government’s animal disease control center to help it round up stray dogs on school grounds.
The post also said that the school was indiscriminate in rounding up the animals and had even removed and was preparing to euthanize a dog nicknamed “Coffee” (咖啡), that many in the school cared about.
The school, in particular the dean’s office, was bombarded with messages from dog lovers and netizens calling for the school to overturn its decision, but Tsai said that the announcement had been made following numerous reports of students and faculty members being chased by stray dogs over the past two weeks.
Tsai said the school acted on the recommendation of its faculty and also in response to recent reports of a young boy who was mauled by stray dogs and had to receive about 100 stitches.
Tsai added that the decision had been made because stray dogs had also attacked multiple staff members and students.
Tsai said that ideally, stray dogs on the school’s premises would have been rounded up before Jan. 9, but that currently only one had been caught and put up for adoption.
The school does not intend to round up all stray dogs, only those that are aggressive and attack or chase people, Tsai said, adding that Coffee was still on the school grounds.
As for the dog that has been caught, if the school decides that the dog is not aggressive, it will allow its faculty staff to adopt it to spare it from the fate of being put down, Tsai said.
Three batches of banana sauce imported from the Philippines were intercepted at the border after they were found to contain the banned industrial dye Orange G, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. From today through Sept. 2 next year, all seasoning sauces from the Philippines are to be subject to the FDA’s strictest border inspection, meaning 100 percent testing for illegal dyes before entry is allowed, it said in a statement. Orange G is an industrial coloring agent that is not permitted for food use in Taiwan or internationally, said Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智), head of the FDA’s Northern Center for
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A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
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