The documentary Twelve Days (十 二夜), which depicts the lives of dogs in a public animal shelter — in which dogs are put to death after 12 days if they are not adopted — held its premier in Taipei yesterday, calling on people to think carefully before adopting pets, rather than adopting and then abandoning them.
With no spoken dialogue, the film uses camera angles to show the lives of dogs in the animal shelter from the dogs’ viewpoints, from when they are brought to the shelter until they are taken to be put to death, as well as rarely seen moments from early in the morning before the staff arrive and late at night, after the workers have all gone home.
“Many people have the mistaken idea that sending stray animals that they find on the streets directly to animal shelters is the best thing to do for them, but actually they will have only 12 days to live if no one adopts them,” film director Raye (who goes by a single English name) said.
Photo: Wang Wen-lin, Taipei Times
“More than 70,000 animals, mostly dogs, are put to death at public shelters in Taiwan every year, at an average of about 200 dogs per day,” she said, expressing hopes that the movie can motivate more people to help share the responsibility for taking good care of animals and to reduce the numbers of animals put to death.
A woman who adopted one of the dogs, which features prominently in the documentary — an elderly beagle — said: “Actually, I find it easier to adopt an elderly dog from the animal shelter, because they may have been pets to other people in the past, so the dog I adopted was quite stable and did not behave wildly like puppies do.”
The film’s executive producer, Giddens Ko (柯景騰), better known by his pseudonym Jiubadao (九把刀), said they have decided to donate all the box office earnings, excluding the fee for theaters and tax, to animal welfare groups to help stray animals.
The documentary is to be shown in theaters from Friday.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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