Residents of Green Island (綠島) have launched a campaign aimed at protecting land crabs from being crushed as they cross roads to breed in shallow coastal waters.
The brainchild of an owner of one of the island’s guest houses, the campaign began at the start of the crab spawning season. In addition to setting up signs asking motorists to drive slowly, islanders are forming teams of guardians to escort crabs crossing roads with heavy traffic.
Many schoolchildren and teachers have joined the drive to protect the crabs.
PHOTO: CNA
The 16km2 island is rich in ecological resources, including various crab species. The natural resources of the island have been well preserved in part due to the island’s complex history. In the second half of the 20th century, many political prisoners and members of organized crime groups were imprisoned on the island and tourism was not encouraged.
The majority of residents have welcomed the change to the island’s fortunes, with the prison emptied and turned into a human rights memorial park, and tourists arriving en masse to soak in hot springs, dive near coral reefs or speed around the island on scooters.
However, video clips showing crabs being crushed to death on roads by scooters have shocked the islanders, who have traditionally honored the road rights of crabs in the breeding season.
Learning of the initiative on the Internet, academics specializing in the fields of biodiversity and conservation have also lent their support.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not