Animals at Taipei Zoo have been receiving specialized health examinations and meals since the facility closed on Wednesday last week for 10 days, zoo staff said.
Veterinarians have been performing health examinations, such as auscultation, and palpation, radiography, ultrasonography, computed tomography scan and clinical pathology tests, they said.
The zoo said it started performing regular health checks on all animals more than a decade ago.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Zoo
Previously the zoo was closed to the public only during Lunar New Year’s Eve, and exhibitions were closed in turns on Mondays for health checks and facility maintenance.
After examining the management of zoos in other countries, Taipei Zoo proposed closing for an extra period every year to conduct facility maintenance and allow the animals to rest and undergo health examinationa.
The proposal last year garnered 98 percent public support on the city’s i-Voting Platform and the policy was implemented this year.
Staff prepared customized meals for some of the animals, including Formosan wild boars, Formosan clouded leopards, mountain lions, Mongolian wild horses, gibbons and gray kangaroos, before they underwent health checks, it said.
Carnivores chew on bones and have high-protein diets, so many have teeth and kidney problems; primates like eating sweets, so they often have cavities or diabetes; many social animals frequently fight and sustain physical injuries; and some temperate-zone or desert animals have skin or fur problems due the hot and humid climate in Taiwan, the zoo said.
The zoo is to reopen on Saturday.
Visitors can purchase tickets with cash or Visa credit cards or buy tickets online via the city’s electronic payment system, pay.taipei, the zoo said.
They can also use EasyCard iPass, HappyCash or icash2.0 payment cards to enter the zoo without a ticket.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS