The crocodile that bit off a vet's forearm at Kaohsiung's Shoushan Zoo on Wednesday had another surprise for authorities on Friday.
As well as not being tranquilized when the vet tried to treat it and surviving being shot after reports said it had been killed, it now turns out that the reptile belongs to a different species of crocodile than was originally believed.
In a press release issued by the zoo after the crocodile bit off veterinarian Chang Po-yu's (
But on Friday evening, the zoo admitted having mistaken the reptile's species after a report on Pingtung Technology University's Wild Animal Information Web site stated that the crocodile was a salt-water crocodile.
"The zoo apologizes for the incorrect information," said Chen Po-tsai (
A report was carried out on the request of the zoo after a crocodile breeder in Tainan saw media coverage of the accident and challenged the zoo's identification of the crocodile.
The zoo at first defended its identification on Friday morning, but admitted its mistake later in the day.
According to the expert report, salt-water crocodiles are not considered an endangered species in countries such as Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, but Taiwan has listed it as a first-grade endangered species.
Wednesday's accident happened when Chang was treating the croc, which he mistakenly thought had been sedated with anesthetic darts.
When he reached to pull a dart from the animal's head, the crocodile bit off his left forearm.
Chang was rushed to the Emergency Room at Chung Ho Memorial Hospital while zoo staff and police struggled to recover his limb from the crocodile.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the