Keelung’s Neiliao Borough (內寮) Office and Anle District (安樂) Office have put up signs telling drivers to slow down in a bid to protect endemic golden thread turtles living in the Neiliao Wetlands (內寮濕地).
The signs — with the image of a turtle and the warning: “Turtles abound. Please drive slowly” — were placed near the entrance to the wetlands by volunteers after a motorist drove over one of the turtles last month.
April to June is usually the spawning period for golden thread turtles, Neiliao Borough Warden Chen Yu-hui (陳玉慧) said.
Photo: Lu Hsien-hsiu, Taipei Times
During this period female turtles usually wander around the wetlands looking for suitable places to lay eggs, Chen said.
Volunteers have been conducting tests of soil temperatures and moisture levels since last month to learn more about the ideal living environment for the turtles, she said.
The first of the turtles was spotted in the wetlands around 2009, Keelung Wild Birds Society president Shen Chin-feng (沈錦豐) said.
About five or six turtles golden thread turtles have been found living in the area, she said.
While the turtles are found in relatively higher numbers in Taiwan than elsewhere, they are listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Shen said.
The local population of golden thread turtles has gradually declined because of the increasing population of red-eared sliders — a species that has invaded many areas after being released by pet owners.
The number of golden thread turtles might drop further if measures are not put in place, Shen said.
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:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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