A stray African gray parrot that landed in a vocational high school in Tainan became the inspiration for the city’s first care and management program for pets, a high-school curriculum that is only the second of its kind in the nation.
Tainan Liuhsin Senior High School principal Huang Wen-sheng (黃文生) said that a disheveled and scraggly parrot, apparently in distress, was found on the campus and was captured four years ago.
School official Hsuan Tseng-hua (宣增華) said he tracked down the owner, who showed no inclination to keep the parrot, so the school decided to adopt the bird.
Photo: Huang Wen-huang, Taipei Times
The quick-witted parrot was nearly booted out of its newfound home for being too smart for comfort. It quickly picked up a few songs and learned to whistle like an officer, and was not shy about showing off its talent by disrupting classes, prompting a proposal to send it away, Huang said.
The faculty and students proposed a school referendum to settle the matter, with 95.1 percent voting in favor of keeping the bird and naming it Hsiao-kuai (小乖), Huang said, adding that the bird has since become “a staff member.”
Taking care of the animal was not easy though, he said.
During the first few months after the adoption, the parrot plucked its feathers and damaged its skin, which veterinarians said was a disorder associated with depression, Huang said.
Its condition improved after students began looking after the bird on their own initiative, he said.
Interaction between the parrot and students gave rise to the idea of starting a department specializing in pet care and management, Huang said.
The massive growth in the pet industry has been associated with the nation’s low birth rate, with more people looking after pets instead of raising children, he said.
Animal care has grown into an enormous industry, with the Ministry of Labor planning to start a certification program in pet grooming, he said.
However, few existing educational institutions provide animal care programs other than veterinarian training, while there is a great shortage of viable programs in pet care and management, he said.
It took more than a year for the school to organize a department specializing in pet care and management before it secured the Ministry of Education’s approval, he said.
The department is set to start in September, with about 50 students to be admitted, Huang added.
“A love for pets can be used to motivate students,” Huang said.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS