The Forestry Bureau on Monday signed a cooperation agreement with a local wildlife conservation society to establish eastern Taiwan’s first large-scale wild animal rescue center.
The agreement was signed by Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Huang Chin-cheng (黃金城), Forestry Bureau Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) and WildOne Wildlife Conservation Association president Chi Meng-jou (綦孟柔).
Huang said that the public and private organizations would work together to establish the wildlife rescue center on Aug. 15.
The establishment of the center is of great importance for Taiwan’s promotion of wildlife conservation, because eastern Taiwan is home to a wide variety of species, Huang said.
The nation’s seven existing government-designated wildlife rescue centers are in Taipei, Taichung, Nantou County and Penghu County, as well as southern Taiwan, the association said.
When an injured wild animal is found in eastern Taiwan, it has to be sent either to a wildlife rehabilitation facility set up by the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in the south or Taipei Zoo in the north, Huang said, adding that the establishment of the new center would help boost Taiwan’s rescue rate of wild animals.
A total of 576 endangered pangolins and other wild animals on the verge of extinction have been rescued around Taiwan over the past five years, and 304 of them have been returned to the wild after being treated, Forestry Bureau statistics showed.
The number of rescued animals in Hualien and Taitung counties rose from 143 in 2015 to 319 last year, the data showed.
The public-private partnership model for the new center was emulated from advanced nations, Lin said.
Chi said the collaboration would make people care about ecology.
In the first phase, the bureau would provide NT$3.6 million (US$122,922) in funds, while the association would raise NT$3.65 million to establish the center, Lin said.
In the next phase, the bureau would continue to provide financial support for the center’s operations, he added.
The center would initially be run by two veterinarians and more staff would be added later, Chi said.
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