At least 56 sea turtle nests have been found on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) off the coast of Taitung County, and on Siaoliouciou Island (小琉球) off the coast of Pingtung County, exceeding the numbers in the past few years, Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA) officials said on Saturday.
The sea turtle nesting season in Taiwan lasts from May to October, and the reptiles have been found nesting along the coastlines of northern, eastern and southern Taiwan, as well as on the nation’s outlying islands.
However, due to the destruction of habitat, poaching and other threats, only green sea turtles have in the past few years continued to come ashore to lay eggs, mainly at five locations on the outlying islands.
Photo copied by Hung Ting-hung, Taipei Times
Nesting and hatching conditions are still being monitored and data would be publicized after the end of the nesting season, OCA officials said.
The five turtle species commonly seen off Taiwan’s coastlines are the green sea turtle, loggerhead sea turtle, olive ridley sea turtle, hawksbill sea turtle and leatherback sea turtle, the officials said.
Green, loggerhead and olive ridley sea turtles have been recorded nesting on Taiwan proper and the outlying islands, they added.
The five remaining nesting areas for green sea turtles are Wangan Township (望安) in Penghu County, Orchid Island, Siaoliouciou Island, the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) and Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), the OCA said.
In 2016, a hawksbill sea turtle laid eggs on a beach at Beiliao Village (北寮) in Penghu County’s Husi Township (湖西), but the eggs were unfertilized and did not hatch.
In 2017, a nest of 27 newly hatched green sea turtles was discovered in Pingtung County’s Kenting (墾丁).
Last year, the first documented nesting of a green sea turtle at Fushan Fish Reserve (富山護魚區) occurred in Taitung County’s Beinan Township (卑南), where 36 sea turtles hatched.
This year, as of the end of last month, the OCA had received reports of people witnessing the nesting or hatching of sea turtles on the beaches of Badai Bay (八代灣) and Siaobadai Bay (小八代灣) on Orchid Island; Yucheng Wei (漁埕尾), Jhong Au (中澳), Duozaiping (肚仔坪), Lobster Cave (龍蝦洞) and Beauty Cave (美人洞) on Siaoliouciou Island and Kenting’s Dawan area (大灣).
Reports also came in from Tiantaishan (天台山), Changlaizi (長瀨仔) and Houdaizi (後袋子) in Penghu County.
Preliminary statistics show 47 reports of nests on Orchid Island, nine on Siaoliouciou Island, seven in Penghu County and at least one in Kenting, the OCA said.
It urged local residents and tourists to avoid beaches where sea turtles nest from 8pm to 5am the next day, and to refrain from using artificial light sources near the beaches, which disturb nesting sea turtles.
The OCA also urged people not to dig holes, build sandcastles, or leave recreational equipment or trash on the beaches, amid concerns that those might become obstacles for the sea turtles.
The agency encouraged the public to call the toll-free coast guard hotline (118) if they find an injured or lost sea turtle.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS