The Council of Agriculture (COA) on Saturday said that after the Lunar New Year holiday it would establish a department to manage pet-related issues.
The department would manage all aspects of pets’ lives “from birth to death” and would have an annual budget of NT$130 million (US$4.71 million), the COA said.
“There are about 7 million households in the country, of which 2 million are registered as having pets. That means about one in three households has pets,” COA Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said, adding that 2.3 million pet dogs and cats are registered nationwide.
Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Government Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office
The value of the domestic pet industry is NT$50 billion annually, which justifies establishing a department specifically for pets, he said.
The average pet owner in Taiwan spends about NT$25,000 per year on their pet, 44 percent of which is for food, he said, adding that the rest mostly covers health-related expenses and grooming.
The new department would oversee aspects of the industry including pet food, grooming, training, pet-sitting and pet insurance, he said.
It would also oversee the management of animal performances, including the implementation of professional review procedures, irregular inspections and evaluations, and the training of specialized enforcement personnel, he said.
The department would develop a pet information system for the public and cultivate talent for the industry, as well as improve consumer education about pets, he said.
“Part of its task would be to work to prevent the introduction of invasive species into the environment,” and a list of approved pets would be made,” he said.
The department would maintain white, gray and black lists that would indicate which animals are safe to raise and which could potentially damage the ecosystem, COA Department of Animal Industry Deputy Director Chiang Wen-chuan (江文全) said, adding that it would work with the Forestry Bureau to create the lists.
“The black list would include animals that people are prohibited from raising, and the gray list would include animals subject to the council’s approval,” he said. “The department would look at the pet owner’s qualifications and the environment where they plan to raise the animal” when making a decision.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai