The Life Conservationist Association (LCA) yesterday urged people to stop giving children inappropriate ideas about how to treat animals by taking them to animal shows or exhibitions that in fact practice cruelty against animals, during a press conference organized by the group in Taipei.
The association showed footage and photographs of animals being forced to perform stunts in order to entertain people at recreational farms, including making miniature pigs jump into ponds and race through loops of fire, forcing monkeys to walk upside-down along a narrow plank and fishing for toads in a pond and then handling them and taking photographs.
“Many animals are being hurt or even sacrificed for the amusement of human beings,” said LCA secretary-general Shih Chuan-fa (釋傳法), adding that in order to understand the situation in Taiwan, the association filmed the animals at several leisure farms nationwide where they had uncovered widespread animal abuse while being called environmental or life education.
Photo provided courtesy of the Life Conservationist Association
The association urged the public to avoid the “touching, riding, feeding and fishing” of animals as well as urging the farms to avoid forcing animals into “inhumane displays and forced performances” given that this can cause harm to the animals while also providing bad examples for children on how to treat animals.
“There is a gap between the recognition of animal protection and the actual practice of protecting them,” said Kurtis Pei (裴家騏), a professor at National Pingtung University’s Institute of Wildlife Preservation.
While many people say that animal cruelty is wrong, they often find it hard to resist the urge to touch or applaud animals on display, he added.
“Most of the animals are in a state of fear when they are being handled by humans, because in their natural environment they are only touched by other animals when they are captured,” Pei said, adding that people often mistakenly believe that patting or caressing an animal is a way to show love and friendliness, but the truth is that the death rate at zoos and leisure farms remain high.
Direct contact with animals may also cause disease to pass between animals and humans, such as the case of an orangutan kept at a leisure farm which was recently diagnosed as having tuberculosis after it was sent to the Pingtung Rescue Center for Endangered Wild Animals for a health test, Pei said.
Lai Wei-jen (賴威任), office director of the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, said that confining whales and dolphins in small pools, such as those seen at sea parks, often causes a decline in their echolocation abilities while also increasing the possibility of disease .
Liu Shiang-yao (劉湘瑤), an associate professor at National Taiwan Normal University’s Graduate Institute of Science Education, said footage which showed adults forcing a scared boy to pat a baby crocodile with its mouth taped up while complimenting the “brave” boy was obviously a distorted way to teach children about respect for living beings and wildlife conservation.
“What are we teaching the children by tying up a baby animal that we fear and then claiming victory by taming or torturing it?” she asked.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Many Japanese couples are coming to Taiwan to obtain donated sperm or eggs for fertility treatment due to conservatism in their home country, Taiwan’s high standards and low costs, doctors said. One in every six couples in Japan is receiving infertility treatment, Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare data show. About 70,000 children are born in Japan every year through in vitro fertilization (IVF), or about one in every 11 children born. Few people accept donated reproductive cells in Japan due to a lack of clear regulations, leaving treatment in a “gray zone,” Taichung Nuwa Fertility Center medical director Wang Huai-ling (王懷麟)
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
RSS