As visitor encounters with the Formosan black bear are increasing along the trails of Yushan National Park, the Yushan National Park Administration Office (玉山國家公園管理處) said it would host a series of seminars to inform the public about the protection of the bear, how to avoid dangerous encounters with the endangered animal and what to do if an encounter occurs.
Increased signage is being erected in areas where bears have been sighted to inform hikers about their presence, the office said, adding that it would also install locks on outdoor food storage units in the area in a bid to prevent bears from foraging near people’s homes.
The office said it would host three instructional seminars next month to educate the public on how to coexist harmoniously with the bears.
Photo courtesy of Yushan National Park Headquarters
“Recently, improper storage of food and disposal of kitchen waste by hikers staying at the Cliffside Mountain Cabin (抱崖山屋) in the park’s east and at the Taitung Forest District Office’s Sun-facing Mountain Cabin (向陽山屋) has attracted bears to the facilities in search of food,” the office said. “To try to prevent reoccurrence of this problem, the park will place notices at the Nanan Visitor Center (南安遊客中心) and the Walami Mountain Cabin (瓦拉米山屋), as well as put locks on food storage cabinets to safeguard food supplies and keep bears from coming dangerously close to people.”
“The Dafen (大分) area of the park is considered to have the greatest concentration of the bears, and has long been an important place for the study of the animals. The eastern part of the old Japanese Batongguan pass (八通關日治越道東段), including the Walami, Baoya, Duomeili and Dafen trails, have seen an increase in the number of encounters with the bears,” the office said.
“To prevent conflicts arising from these encounters, the office is to hold three seminars entitled ‘From the Mountain Forests to the Streets,’ aimed at educating the public about the preservation of these animals to the greater public,” it added.
National Pingtung University of Science and Technology Institute of Wildlife Conservation director Hwang Mei-hsu (黃美秀) will make a special appearance this year, along with her research team, joining the seminars on Aug. 19 at the Shueili Township Office (水里行政中心), on Aug. 20 at the Taichung Metropolitan Park and Aug. 21 at the Kaohsiung Metropolitan Park.
She hopes the seminars will make the public better informed about the protection of the endangered Formosan black bear, and learn what to do if an encounter with one occurs.
Registration for the seminars will be open until Aug. 5. Interested parties can consult the Taiwan Black Bear Conservation Association Web site at www.taiwanbear.org.tw) for more information.
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