Three pygmy killer whales rescued from the Port of Kaohsiung (高雄港) died on Friday night despite hours of treatment by experts, who found 18 entangled plastic bags in the stomach of one of the whales.
The three whales were part of more than 20 cetaceans disoriented in the port and reported to Kaohsiung City Government’s Agriculture Bureau on Feb. 4.
The agriculture bureau found the carcasses of a Risso’s dolphin and eight pygmy killer whales in the days following the alert.
Photo: Tsai Ching-hua, Taipei Times
After efforts to rescue three surviving whales failed on Tuesday last week, the bureau, under the advice of Wang Chien-ping (王建平), director of the Marine Biology and Cetacean Research Center at National Cheng Kung University, decided to bring them to shore to save them from dying in the cold weather, it said.
More than 60 people joined the effort to catch them on Friday, including workers from Taiwan International Ports Corp; shipbuilder CSBC Corp, Taiwan; China Steel Corp; the Forestry Bureau; the city government’s Marine Bureau; and rescue associations in Chiayi and Pingtung counties, the agriculture bureau said.
After more than three hours, they managed to bring the three whales to shore and sent them to the university’s research center for medical care.
Despite hours of treatment, the whales lost their lives on Friday night, Wang said yesterday, adding that their cardiopulmonary functions were weak before they died.
Unidentifiable garbage and plastic bags were found in the whales’ stomachs when the center dissected the bodies.
A bundle of “black stuff” was dragged from the stomach of the thinnest whale — the mass turned out to be 18 entangled plastic bags.
“The whale’s stomach was stuffed with bags. It could not take in any more, although it must have been very hungry,” Wang said, while calling on the public to reduce plastic bag use and stop dumping garbage in nature.
Many netizens found the news heart-wrenching, with some saying: “Humans should apologize to you!”
Why the creatures became disoriented is uncertain, the agriculture bureau said, adding that if people find any whales or dolphins disoriented or grounded along the shore, they should immediately report it to the city government using the 1999 hotline.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS