The Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday decided to remove Formosan rock macaques and seven other species from its list of protected species, while adding 17 species to it.
The council’s Forestry Bureau yesterday convened a five-hour meeting with experts to discuss the classification of wildlife, with the protection status of macaques being one of the most heatedly debated issues.
Among the 17 species being added to the list are the Taiwan rosefinch, the long-tailed pigeon and the Formosan yuhina, the bureau said.
GENERAL WILDLIFE
Eight formerly protected species, including the macaques, the Formosan Reeve’s muntjac and the masked palm civet have been reclassified as general wildlife, it said.
“The decision has nothing to do with agricultural losses [caused by animals], which is another issue,” bureau Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) said, adding that the living conditions and distribution of wildlife are the bureau’s main concerns.
The bureau would also initiate monitoring plans for those species, Lin added.
A study in 2000 suggested that there were between 250,000 and 300,000 macaques, while other evidence suggests that their number has been growing steadily, said National Tunghai University Department of Life Sciences professor Lin Liang-kong (林良恭), who attended the meeting.
However, a more comprehensive survey about the species’ living conditions is needed, he added.
FARM RAIDS
While many farmers have complained about monkey raids, only a few of them have harmed the animals, because they think the macaques look like humans, Lin Liang-kong said, adding that experts have been helping farmers install electric fences around their farms to keep out wild animals.
People who hunt protected animals could face a prison term of between six months and five years or a fine between NT$200,000 and NT$1 million (US$6,577 and US$32,891) for breaching the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法), bureau Conservation Division Director Hsia Jung-sheng (夏榮生) said.
People who hunt non-protected animals could face a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000 under the act, she said.
The bureau needs to finish related paperwork before it can formally announce the changed protection statuses of wildlife, Hsia added.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS