Authorities and Buddhist organizations are calling for the practice of releasing caged or injured animals into the wild to be modernized to make the Buddhist ritual more environmentally friendly.
The Council of Agriculture and two Buddhist organizations yesterday held a news conference to demonstrate ecologically correct approaches to releasing animals.
The council said at least 750 “live release” ceremonies are held every year, but the controversial ritual, which is intended to return animals to nature, has caused mass deaths of released animals, disrupted ecosystems and spread diseases, in addition to problems with the animal trade involved in the practice.
Showing photographs of mass deaths of sea fish released in fresh water and invasive bullfrogs hunting indigenous frogs, Forestry Bureau Director-General Lee Tao-sheng (李桃生) said: “One must release the right animal at the right place at the right time to prevent ecological disasters.”
The council has made amendments to the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法) to require all animal releasing events to acquire government approval, while improper releasing that causes mass deaths of animals or damages the ecosystem is punishable with a fine of up to NT$2.5 million (US$76,816), Lee said, adding that the amendments were delivered to the Legislative Yuan for review and are expected to come into effect by the end of this year.
Endemic Species Research Institute researcher Chan Fang-tse (詹芳澤) said an ecological life release program in cooperation with religious organizations have made animal releasing a more scientific practice. The program involves organizing conservation areas to training animals to be released to survive in the wild, Chan said.
The first four years of the program saw a shift from large-scale, commercialized animal releasing events to smaller events in which only a handful of captured or injured animals were returned to their habitats after treatment, he said.
The program has also changed Buddhists’ and the public’s conflicting attitudes toward animal releasing, he said.
“We [researchers at the institute] were trained in science-related fields and were against the idea of animal releasing in every way, but after interacting with Buddhist organizations and learning about Buddhism, we have come to accept the idea,” he said. “On the other hand, religious groups have learned to adopt scientific ways of releasing and raising animals, such as feeding meat to carnivores.”
Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist Foundation and Buddhist Sangha Health Care Foundation said that most animals they have freed were captured by firefighters or those rescued and treated by the institute, and that animal releasing is meant to return animals to their natural habitats that have been destroyed by human activities.
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