Specialists and government officials are working to determine whether large amounts of animal bones discovered in sacks abandoned by the roadside in Keelung last week are from dogs or pigs.
The Keelung Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office is offering a NT$100,000 (US$3,330) reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person who left more than 100 sacks of bones along the city’s Qian Industry Road, which were discovered on Thursday last week and are suspected to be the remains of dogs that were cooked and consumed.
Wu Sheng-hai (吳聲海), an assistant professor in National Chung Hsing University’s Department of Life Sciences, said that based on photographs of the jawbones and teeth that were released in the media, he thinks that the bones are from pigs, because dogs’ teeth look sharp from the side and are narrower.
“Just look at the teeth of your dog at home and you will understand,” he said, criticizing the office for its apparent inability to tell pigs from dogs.
Wu should not spread rumors after merely looking at photographs, office Director Chen Jui-pin (陳瑞濱) said, adding that the bones have been sent to the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau for examination and the results will be published in three weeks.
The Wild Animal Memorial Club, an online fanclub dedicated to wildlife protection, on Facebook criticized the office for offering a reward before identifying the bones.
Chen said the office on Thursday asked National Taiwan University and the Council of Agriculture’s (COA) Animal Health Research Institute to help identify the bones, but they only identified the flesh, not the bones, which were sent to the bureau for examination on Friday.
The sacks were full of maggots and emitted a horrible smell; they contained dog bones and the office is working with the police to solve the case, said Chen, who holds a master’s degree in veterinary medicine.
“Your words are unjust to the investigators that are working hard on the case,” Chen said, referring to Wu’s comments.
Even if only one dog bone is found in the sacks, that would constitute a violation of the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法), Chen said, adding that if the bones are from pigs, abandoning them by the road violated the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法) and the case would nonetheless be investigated.
COA Animal Protection section chief Jiang Wen-chuan (江文全) said he suggested that the office send the bones over for examination.
If the bones are confirmed to be from dogs, the offender could be sentenced to up to two years in prison and a fine of between NT$200,000 and NT$2 million.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS