New footage of mountain hawk eagles and their nests promises to demystify the brooding habits of the “lord of the skies,” the Yushan National Park Administration said on Wednesday, promising to share its findings with the public in a documentary and book.
The park in June last year commissioned Sun Yuan-hsun (孫元勳), a professor at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s Institute of Wildlife Conservation, to track a female hawk eagle, which Bunun residents of the area named Ibu.
Ibu, who lives in the park’s south, is believed to be about five years old, based on her red irises and feather coloring, park officials said.
After six months of tracking Ibu, researchers in February found that she had reduced her movements to 13km2 in a valley near the Southern Cross-Island Highway, they said.
Researchers said that the behavior led them to believe she was brooding, so they searched the area and in early May found a nest 27m above the ground in a Taiwan white pine.
Inside was a chick that was estimated to be about six months old, officials said, adding that researchers set up a camera to record the nest.
Some of the footage revealed Ibu in the same frame as a male bird one or two years her junior — likely her mate, the officials said.
The camera also captured prey that the adult birds brought to the nest, including flying squirrels, pigeons and even muntjacs weighing about 3kg, the park officials said.
Sun said that previous footage has shown the birds taking muntjacs from other predators, so the new footage might be the first evidence that hawk eagles catch the small deer by themselves.
There are an estimated 1,000 mountain hawk eagles in Taiwan, with 142 to 230 in Yushan, park officials said.
While the proportion the park is home to is not particularly high, it has the largest group, they said, adding that this year’s hatchlings would soon be leaving their nests.
Park officials said that they plan to compile their findings and footage into a documentary and science book to help people better understand the “lords of the skies.”
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS