Fireflies have returned to Taipei’s Daan Forest Park (大安森林公園) after a decades-long absence, and they can now be seen in several other areas around the nation as well.
The Taipei Public Works Department’s Parks and Street Lights Office and civic groups spent the past three years removing alien plant species from the park and replacing them with native plants in a bid to restore firefly habitats, officials said.
Firefly light trails that were last seen in the park 24 years ago reappeared on March 26, as fireflies were spotted at the park’s No. 3 pond, they said.
Photo: CNA, courtesy of the West Lake Resortopia
A firefly watching festival in Taipei is to open on Monday next week, with the city government recommending Daan Forest Park, Muzha Cui Lake (木柵翠湖), Rongxing Garden Park (榮星花園) and the Shilin Official Residence (士林官邸) as the best places to see fireflies.
People are urged to follow some dos and don’ts when looking for fireflies: Do not make loud noises, do not attempt to capture them, do not shine direct light at them, and cover flashlight lenses with red cellophane to avoid disturbing the insects, city officials said.
Fireflies are very sensitive to light pollution, especially light wavelengths between 360 nanometers and 420 nanometers or between 550 nanometers and 580 nanometers, which can seriously disrupt their ability to reproduce, officials added.
The Parks and Street Lights Office said it would also cover street lights in Daan park with a specialized shade to avoid annoying fireflies.
The firefly season in Taichung’s Dongshi District (東勢) is already underway, the Taichung Agriculture Bureau said on Sunday.
For 14 years the Soft Pond Recreational Agriculture Area (軟埤坑休閒農業區) has held a firefly watching event and visitors can learn about Hakka culture and the ecosystem through a variety of activities, ecological tours or trying Hakka cuisines made from local ingredients, the bureau said.
The Pears Homeland Recreational Agriculture Area (梨之鄉休閒農業區) has several firefly watching trails with local ecological tours, and visitors can also enjoy rural cuisines created by farmers, the bureau said.
Fireflies have also been spotted in mountainous areas in Miaoli County, including West Lake Resortopia (西湖渡假村) in Sanyi Township (三義) and various locations in Dahu (大湖), Nanjhuang (南庄), Zaociao (造橋), Sanwan (三灣), Tongsiao (通霄) and Tongluo (銅鑼) townships.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS