Hsinchu Zoo and Tobu Zoo in Japan’s Saitama Prefecture on Tuesday established sister relations to cooperate on animal care and protection.
Hsinchu Deputy Mayor Shen Hui-hung (沈慧虹) said she hopes that through the agreement, Hsinchu Zoo would learn from the outstanding wildlife conservation efforts of Tobu Zoo.
The two zoos are to conduct regular exchanges on animal care and conservation, with the Hsinchu facility seeking to boost its soft power and upgrade its animal breeding expertise, she said at a ceremony in the city.
Photo: CNA
The agreement was signed by Hsinchu Zoo director Yang Chia-min (楊家民) and Tobu Zoo director Mitsuo Ban, and witnessed by Shen.
Hsinchu Zoo reopened last month after two years of renovations with a goal to be a facility for life education and animal protection.
Tobu Zoo, which opened in 1981 as the 80th anniversary project of Tobu Railway, is a popular hybrid theme park, comprising a zoo, an amusement park and swimming pools.
It has about 1,200 animals, with some allowed to be fed by visitors.
It is one of the few places where white tigers are displayed and has plans for an observatory area modeled on Hsinchu Zoo’s tropical rain forest gallery to allow people to see them close up, Yang said.
Tobu Zoo has the Heartful Garden, with 410 plant species that grow all year round, and the Palette Garden, which has flowers and fruit trees, including 3,000 Yoshino cherry trees, Ban said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
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