The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) and several other environmental groups yesterday said that the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium kept whale sharks in small tanks that caused their health to deteriorate.
The group urged the aquarium to release the last remaining whale shark and not to bring in new ones.
According to EAST director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏), the aquarium in Pingtung County has held three whale sharks — a species that has been listed on “Appendix II” of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and labeled “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature — in captivity since April 2004, in the name of education and marine research.
Photo courtesy of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan
The groups’ investigation suggested that one whale shark died of poor health in 2007, another was secretly released into the ocean without undergoing rehabilitation or tagging for follow-up research the same year and the remaining 6m-long whale shark was being kept in a small tank, Chen said.
Showing a video clip and photographs of the remaining whale shark at a press conference in Taipei yesterday, Chen said that it had scars on its tail from hitting the tank’s walls and reefs in the tank because the tank was too small.
Citing data from whale shark tag release research conducted by Chuang Shou-cheng (莊守正), an associate professor at the National Taiwan Ocean University’s Department of Environmental Biology and Fisheries Science, the groups said that whale sharks often stay in deep waters — about 5m to 10m below the sea surface, but sometimes submerge to 80m below sea level, and that they can migrate up to 34km a day.
Keeping the whale shark in its current tank, which is 33m long, 22m wide and about 8m to 12m in depth, is like keeping it in a jail cell, the groups said, adding that the video showed the whale shark swimming in the tank in the same circling direction.
It took the whale shark about 50 to 80 seconds to swim a circle in the tank, which meant that it would swim about 360 to 576 circles just in the eight hours that the aquarium was open daily, the groups said.
Lai Wei-jen (賴威任), office director of the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, said whale sharks have a life span of about 70 to 100 years in the ocean, but data from an aquarium in Okinawa, Japan, showed that 16 whale sharks kept in captivity during the period from 1980 to 1998 lived for an average of only 16 months.
Lee Chan-rong (李展榮), an official at the aquarium, said the aquarium has proposed to tag release the remaining whale shark after it introduces a new small whale shark into the tank, allowing the bigger whale shark to teach the new whale shark for a while.
The groups urged the government not to approve the proposal to introduce any whale sharks, and to ask the aquarium to tag release the remaining whale shark as soon as possible.
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
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
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said