The Faunis eumeus, or large faun butterfly, has been chosen by the Wild Bird Society of Keelung and the Butterfly Conservation Society of Taiwan as the ambassador to promote environmental education in Keelung.
The Keelung area provides a unique butterfly habitat, with the two societies claiming to have discovered about 169 species of butterflies in and around the city.
In July, the societies began a series of environmental education talks at schools and called on residents to vote for a “city butterfly.” They also published a book titled Keelung and Butterflies (蝶蝶不休話基隆), so residents could gain a deeper understanding of the city’s fauna.
Photo: Courtesy of Wild Bird Society of Keelung
Wild Bird Society of Keelung director Shen Chin-feng (沈錦豐) said that the two groups jointly held more than 60 talks in the area and handed out more than 36,000 butterfly ballots.
The groups earlier this month received 12,500 ballots back on which butterfly would best represent Keelung, of which only 12,200 were valid ballots, Shen said, adding that the large faun butterfly came in at No. 1 with more than 5,000 votes.
However, the groups said that their event was not aimed at choosing a “city butterfly,” but was rather intended to promote environmental conservation and awareness across the city.
“We hoped to let residents and young people understand the particular characteristics of Keelung and what kind of ecosystem it has fostered,” Shen said.
The Keelung City Government said that the black kite is still its only official fauna representative.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods