A greater number of critically endangered Chinese crested terns, previously thought to be extinct, have been spotted in the Matsu archipelago, with their population expected to exceed 100 in the near future.
The Forestry Bureau said 13 adults and four chicks had been observed at tern conservation areas on the islands last month, contributing to a total of 75 adults and 24 chicks spotted this year at the species’ three known breeding sites.
The other two sites are the Jiushan Islands and the Wushishan Islands in China’s Zhejiang Province.
Photo provided by Wang Chien-hua
It was the first time in three years that chicks had been seen in the Matsu islands, the bureau’s conservation official Hsia Jung-sheng (夏榮生) said.
Known for its white rump, pale grey mantle and the black-tipped bill, the species is among the most threatened varieties of seabird worldwide and the birds were assumed to be extinct until they were rediscovered on the Matsu archipelago in 2000, the bureau said.
The seabirds’ global population was estimated to be less than 50 prior to 2000, making the species rarer than the black-faced spoonbills, of which there are an estimated 3,000, the bureau said.
The rediscovery of the birds in 2000 was the first time their breeding activity had been recorded. They were not seen elsewhere until 2004, when they were spotted on the Jiushan Islands, the bureau said.
Academics and birdwatchers regard the species as almost mythological because of their rarity and the difficulty of tracing them, the bureau said.
The Chinese crested tern was designated “critically endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species in 2012 and is classified as an endangered species on Taiwan’s three-category wildlife protection list.
The bureau teamed up with the Lienchiang County Government and National Taiwan University (NTU) in 2010 to conserve and study the birds, the bureau said, adding that a research team led by NTU professor Yuan Hsiao-wei (袁孝維) found that populations at the three breeding sites interact with each other.
To attract terns of different species and boost breeding, the research team and Wild Bird Society of Taipei have positioned models of greater crested terns and decoys on islets around Matsu, which has encouraged favorable breeding conditions since 2011.
The conservation areas were expanded this year, with Tiejian Island (鐵尖島) being the main conservation site with the highest density, which saw nearly 3,000 greater crested terns and 10 Chinese crested terns coming to the area in May, the bureau said.
“A total of 4,000 adults and nearly 1,000 chicks of the greater crested tern and 13 adults and four chicks of the Chinese crested tern have been seen as of last month, which suggests successful conservation efforts,” the bureau said.
FATAL FIRE: The health department is trying to contact the inspector who visited the site of the illegal nursing home to ask why they did not advise follow-up checks The Taipei City Government yesterday said that a health department inspector last year had visited the site of a long-term care facility in Neihu District (內湖) after receiving a report questioning its status. A fire broke out at the facility on Tuesday afternoon, killing three people. The Taipei Fire Department said that it received a report about a fire on the first floor of a four-story residential building on Kangning Road Sec. 1 at 2:38pm on Tuesday, firefighters arrived at 2:43pm and the fire was put out by 3:07pm. The firefighters found three men in beds and rushed them to hospital for
Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (王浩) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Monday called for security improvements to the MRT, as fare evasion has increased more than 13-fold on the metropolitan railway system over the past five years. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has spoken out against fare evasion and other contraventions of MRT regulations, but since he took office in 2015 the number of contraventions has more than doubled, Wang said, adding that there were 537 cases in 2015 compared with 959 last year. A video was posted to YouTube in June showing people how to evade paying a fare,
FEELING MISUNDERSTOOD: Media speculation has fueled confusion about the KMT’s reasons for skipping a Chinese forum and delaying an AIT meeting, party sources said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sunday said that it is not seeking to improve relations with the US or China at the expense of the other, and that its relations with the countries would be topic-based. The party has faced questions over its foreign policy after it on Monday last week announced its withdrawal from the annual Straits Forum and delayed planned talks with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). The party has also taken a tough stance on the importation of US meat containing ractopamine, while also lambasting China for increasing its military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait. Following
Yuchi Township (魚池) fishers have appealed to the Nantou County Government for help in dealing with an invasive fish species in Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), where it has devastated the local ecosystem. Fishers at Sun Moon Lake have been using electrofishing in an attempt to eliminate the giant snakehead fish — found in Africa and Southeast Asia — but they have struggled to keep up with the growing population of the species, which breeds during September and October, the county government said on Monday. The county has contacted researchers at National Tsing Hua University, saying it hoped they could come up
RSS