A nationwide bird survey is to be conducted over the New Year period to celebrate the holiday and raise public awareness of wildlife protection, the Taiwan-based Chinese Wild Bird Federation said.
Similar to last year’s census, which documented 292 bird species, this year’s survey is to involve universities, civic groups and bird associations working to identifying birds in nearly 140 observation “circles” across the nation, federation campaigner Allen Lyu (呂翊維) said.
“The most exciting thing is that we have more groups registered on outlying islands this year, which could boost the number of species that are documented,” Lyu said.
In Kinmen County, for instance, there are three groups of volunteers joining in the effort, compared with only one last year, Lyu said.
He said that more than 1,000 bird lovers are expected to turn out for the event across Taiwan, which would be nearly double the 600 participants in last year’s survey.
Participants are required to stay in their circles — each has a radius of 3km — for at least six hours a day during the census, due to take place from Saturday next week to Jan. 11, and record any bird species they see. A database on bird populations will be built based on the findings so that follow-up research can be performed, helping conservationists to better understand birds’ living environments and draw up better protection plans, Lyu said.
It is also hoped that the idea of citizen science, which relies on public participation, can be implemented, Lyu said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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