The government is taking lessons from the recent mass die-off of endangered black-faced spoonbills in southern Taiwan and studying the feasibility of forming a permanent team of specialists to deal with similar wildlife conservation issues in the future, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday.
Council Vice Chairman Tai Cheng-yao (戴振耀) made the remarks during an international symposium on black-faced spoonbills held in Tainan County.
Tai noted that despite strenuous efforts to save them, 73 black-faced spoonbills have died from botulism poisoning since the first reported cases Dec. 9 in the Chiku Wetland.
He said that designating a black-faced spoonbill conservation area in Tainan County is not enough; the nation has to learn from the experiences of other countries to reduce the incidence of mishaps among endangered birds.
Tainan County Magistrate Su Huan-chi (蘇煥智) expressed his appreciation at the symposium to those who had helped rehabilitate the birds that were saved and said that the symposium will serve as a reference for future rescue operations.
Experts from Japan, the US and Taiwan participated in the two-day meeting to discuss black-faced spoonbill conservation, identification of illness in the birds and subsequent contingency measures, and management and analysis of their habitat.
Meanwhile, with the weather becoming warmer, bird watchers in Tainan have reported that the number of endangered birds is decreasing.
They said that from past experience, this is about the time that spoonbills start to migrate north and that the number would normally decrease dramatically by the end of the month.
By the end of May, all the birds will likely have left.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
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