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.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS