The Kenting National Park Administration yesterday rejected reports that herds of Formosan sika deer had been slaughtered, but added that current laws are insufficient to protect the animals from poaching or mistreatment.
Reports yesterday claimed that more than 300 Formosan sika deer under the care of park administrators had been killed by humans and stray dogs, with their remains scattered across Longzaipu Meadow (籠仔埔) and Banana Bay (香蕉灣) in the park.
Park Deputy Director Lee Teng-chih (李登志) said the agency and local police inspected the sites immediately after hearing the reports, but found just nine dead deer on the meadow, which Lee attributed to an attack by stray dogs.
Photo: CNA
This is not the first time deer in the park have been attacked by strays, he said.
Referring to what were said to be the bones of deer packed into bags and discarded in the bay, Lee said that preliminary documentation by National Pingtung University of Science and Technology professor Pei Chia-chi (裴家驥) of some skulls found among the remains indicated that the bones belonged to pigs.
He added that pig farmers have disposed of pig bones in the bay for a long time.
Suspected illegal hunters found guilty of poaching in the national park would be fined NT$3,000 under the National Park Act (國家公園法), Lee said, adding that he thinks the fine is “very low.”
Lee said that the law has remained largely the same since it was introduced in the 1970s and that the penalties it stipulates are outdated.
He said that the administration wants to register the deer on the Forestry Bureau’s list of protected wildlife, which would give them better protection under the law, but the animals must pass a Council of Agriculture analysis of their DNA.
The species went extinct in the wild in the 1970s and was restored in about 1984, but some have suspected that the current herds are products of mixed breeding, which has prevented them from being recognized by the council, Lee said.
He added that his agency is gathering information to prove that the deer are pure-blooded.
He said that there are about 2,000 Formosan sika deer on the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) and in the Jioupeng area (九棚) in Pingtung, but most are in captivity in a protected zone managed by the administration.
A prior placement project was unsuccessful, with all 233 deer released into the wild having died, Lee said.
Forestry Bureau Section Chief Kuan Li-hao (管立豪) said the failure of the placement project is the major reason preventing the deer from being recognized.
He said that the deer in the park, restored from Formosan sika deer at zoos, drew suspicion over their origins, with some saying that they could be the offspring of sika deer imported from abroad.
He said that he would love to see the deer put on the list, but urged the administration to cooperate with the bureau in providing a placement project assessment report and DNA documentation.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS