The National Police Agency’s Seventh Special Police Corps has forwarded a case of alleged illegal breeding of grade-two endangered species to prosecutors, citing the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法).
The corps on Wednesday said it received a tip about a man surnamed Chiang (江) in Hualien County’s Guangfu Township (光復), and found a locked house on private property.
The officer leading the check applied for a warrant to enter the premises, saying that something “felt suspicious” and citing his two decades of experience as a police officer.
Photo provided by the Seventh Special Police Corps of the National Police Agency’s Seventh Division
When the officers, accompanied by officials from the Forestry Bureau’s Hualien branch, on Monday entered the premises, they found 79 Chinese box turtles, the corps said.
The turtle is on the conservation list, as it is among the most poached wildlife species worldwide, the corps said, adding that the turtles were hiding in earthen and twig mounds or placed inside an abandoned deer shed.
The bureau officials said they were surprised that Chiang had created a professional breeding setup, with safe spots for the turtles and earth for them to burrow in and lay eggs in.
Chiang was quoted as saying that he started keeping turtles more than a decade ago.
“I was quite moved to see the turtles being captured and sold to China, and started raising them for fear that they would go extinct,” Chiang was quoted as saying, adding that he was passionate about Chinese box turtle conservation.
The corps officers said no tools that could be used to capture turtles were found on the premises, nor were there any documents to counter Chiang’s claims.
However, the corps nonetheless forwarded the case to prosecutors, citing a suspected violation of the law.
The officers said they doubted Chiang’s claims, as the population of turtles on site pointed to a professional breeding operation.
The corps called on the public to contact it if they have any tips and to report any illegal breeding of Chinese box turtles to the Forestry Bureau’s Hualien branch office.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai