Yunlin County’s Linnei Township (林內) is currently holding a festival to celebrate the migration of Taiwanese milkweed butterflies.
The nation’s four species of milkweed butterflies (Euploea) migrate northward from southern Taiwan during March or April every year and are usually blackish brown in color with metallic purple scales and white spots on their wings.
The insects spend the winter in the valleys of southern Taiwan, mostly in Greater Kaohsiung’s Maolin District (茂林) and Taitung County’s Dawu Township (大武).
Photo: Chan Shih-hung, Taipei Times
During migration the butterflies pass through Linnei township in early April, the office said, adding that the butterflies have arrived earlier this year due to a relatively warm winter.
Volunteers counted more than 200 butterflies per minute flying through the town during peak times, the office said.
Researchers have found that a section of the Formosa Freeway (National Freeway No. 3), between kilometer markers 251 and 253, is a hotspot where milkweed butterflies pass through in large numbers during migrating season, so the National Freeway Bureau has set up a protection net to prevent them from being run over. It has since 2007 even closed the freeway’s northbound outside lanes during peak days of the migration.
Following an opening ceremony yesterday, Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) and township Mayor Chiou Shih-wen (邱世文) invited visitors to shout out: “I love butterflies and I am against nuclear power,” as an oath to protect the butterflies’ natural environment from the risks of radioactive contamination.
A street parade was held to celebrate the festival, which included dozens of girls in ballet dresses with sparkling fake antennas and wings, and boys in scout uniforms and butterfly-shaped paper decorations on their caps.
A series of events, including customized stamp making, butterfly and ecology observance trips, performances for children, 3D art displays, are to take place today and next weekend at the township.
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
Recent movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been “highly unusual,” but the military maintains a grasp of the situation, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday, after the military for the first time said it was monitoring troop movements in China’s Dacheng Bay (大埕灣). The minister gave the remarks to reporters before appearing at the legislature on the first day of its new session. The Ministry of National Defense on Thursday evening released an air force surveillance photograph of a PLA Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, and said it was monitoring the PLA Rocket Force and ground
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for