With the number of birds culled in response to the avian influenza outbreaks exceeding 1.7 million, the Environment and Animal Society Taiwan (EAST) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) yesterday slammed what they said were inhumane practices adopted by local governments.
The Council of Agriculture also came under fire from the society, who said the council had not updated its culling procedure in compliance with international standards and had been negligent in its duty to monitor the exterminations.
At a news conference in Taipei, EAST played video footage shot during culls last weekend at six poultry farms in Yunlin County — the area most severely hit by the outbreak — and demanded that the council assume responsibility for what it called the cruel treatment of the birds, which included dead and living geese bagged together in blood-stained hessian bags and then snatched up by a crane with a metal claw.
Photo: Courtesy of Environment and Animal Society Taiwan
Living birds could be seen struggling inside the bags, some of which the group said had been left for more than 12 hours as culling personnel waited for the fowl to suffocate. Geese were shown grabbed by the neck — appearing to be in considerable pain — before being put into the bags.
Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Shih Tai-hua (施泰華) had said that carbon dioxide was used to sedate animals before culling, but EAST chief executive Wu Hung (朱增宏) disputed that, saying that his group’s findings showed that culling undertaken at most farms was carried out without the gas, in violation of extermination guidelines stipulated by the World Organization for Animal Health, of which Taiwan is a member.
Wu also rejected Shih’s assertion that soldiers had been deployed to disinfect vehicles along roads used by culling personnel to transport dead birds to incinerators or rendering plants — a disease control measure the bureau pledged to implement last week.
Meanwhile, the group’s investigation into extermination efforts by nine local governments highlighted the lack of a standard operating procedure in the extermination methods adopted by local governments.
Yunlin County said that its personnel froze geese with dry ice and Changhua County said exterminators suffocated waterfowl showing weak vital signs with hessian sacks.
Pingtung and Chiayi counties, as well as Greater Tainan, used chloral hydrate to cull birds — a practice that has been banned by the US Department of Agriculture because the compound is a weak sedative.
None of the local governments that used carbon dioxide were able to provide information on the concentration or quantities used, the probe showed.
Citing World Organization for Animal Health extermination guidelines, Wu said that carbon dioxide — at 40 percent to 70 percent concentration — should be introduced gradually directly into poultry houses to sedate or kill the birds in a manner that causes minimum distress.
Alternatively, fowl can be placed into plastic or metal containers into which carbon dioxide is introduced to ensure that fowl are properly anesthetized prior to extermination, Wu said, adding that placing birds into hessian sacks did not meet this requirement.
Lin questioned the council’s inactivity over improving culling methods despite the millions of New Taiwan dollars in grants it has distrubuted to academics to conduct research into the field, the results of which include an article describing an automated carbon dioxide administering bagging machine, written by National Chiayi University professor Huang Ching-hsiang (黃慶祥), and an article published in 2008 on an alkaline foam-spraying system for chicken euthanization by National Chung Hsing University professor Yang Chi (楊繼).
However, Shih said chloral hydrate was used to sedate the birds and the practice should therefore be considered humane. He said that the bureau would address its administrative negligence and improve its extermination measures.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and