Taiwan has started using advanced biotechnology to protect endangered whales and dolphins against poachers, supplementing existing DNA testing, agriculture officials said earlier this week.
A newly developed litmus test financed by the government will show within minutes whether meat samples seized from poachers are whale or dolphin meat, the officials said.
Poachers previously tried to avoid prosecution by cutting the heads off dolphins or whales that they caught.
Three years ago, the council began using DNA tests to identify the meat, but results took five days to arrive.
“Now it takes only 10 minutes to verify any samples,” said Kuan Li-hao (管立豪), director of the Forestry Bureau’s Conservation Division.
The litmus paper is designed to be activated by the unique structure of a protein in whales and dolphins, said Yang Wei-cheng, an associate professor of the National Chiayi University who heads the research team.
More than 30 officials from customs, the coast guard and other government bodies attended a training session in Taipei on Tuesday on the new detection method.
About 100 more officials were to have taken the training course by Thursday, Kuan said.
All species of whales and dolphins have been protected by Taiwan’s conservation law since 1989.
Violators face a prison term of up to five years and a fine of up to NT$1.5 million (US$50,000).
While poaching continues, the number of offenses was declining, the council said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift