A top Council of Agriculture official yesterday said it might develop facial recognition technology for pet registration to replace chipping, in an effort to address the country’s growing stray dog population.
Director of Animal Industry Hsieh Yao-ching (謝耀清), who is newly appointed, made the surprising remark during his maiden question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
More shelters are urgently needed to help local governments control the stray dog population, but the issue should be tackled at its source, Hsieh said, referring to people abandoning their pets.
“Mandatory chipping has not been a policy success and we are evaluating the viability of using facial recognition,” Hsieh said.
Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) told lawmakers that the government is experiencing difficulties in making all shelters in the country “no-kill shelters.”
Since the council started implementing the policy in February, local governments have been reporting overcrowding at animal shelters and an uptick of stray dogs on their streets, sources have said.
“Because of the policy, some parts of the country now have no space in animal shelters at all,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Li-shan (張麗善) said.
The council had been given all the money it asked for to implement the policy and should therefore do a better job, she said.
Lin Tsung-hsien replied that the no-kill shelter policy had been a rushed decision.
“Frankly, local governments and the general public are simply not ready for it,” he said.
“It is not true that some localities have no available shelters,” Lin Tsung-hsien said. “However, the additional capacity that is needed has generally failed to materialize, because while people want animal shelters, they do not want them in their back yards.”
The “nine-in-one” elections for local government heads and councilors are next year, further complicating handling the issue at the local level, Lin Tsung-hsien said.
The council is having internal discussions to develop a differentiated strategy to deal with the stray animal issue that takes differences between urban and rural areas into account, he added.
The tentative solution would involve some form of collaboration between local veterinarians and municipal or county governments, Lin Tsung-hsien said.
When Hsieh was asked to clarify his comments about facial recognition technology for animals, he said the idea was still being explored.
“I will tell the public more about this proposal after we collect enough information,” he said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
RSS