Less than two months before the Nov. 26 local elections, two of the hotly contested Taipei mayoral race’s three main candidates have released policy proposals aimed at wooing the city’s pet owners.
In a speech last week, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) nodded to the importance of this emergent voter bloc, saying there are more than 218,000 registered pets in Taipei, or nearly one for every four of the city’s 1.04 million registered households.
Chiang’s pitch to this group included a pledge to work with the private sector to launch “standard form contracts” for pet health insurance policies and to create a Taipei City Government team to investigate claims of abuse against animals other than cats and dogs.
Photo: CNA
In terms of accessing public transport, he said he hoped to expand on the city’s pet-friendly bus initiative.
He would launch a trial program offering designated “pet carriages” during off-peak hours on the MRT railway serving metropolitan Taipei.
Chiang, a two-term legislator, also proposed establishing guidelines to guarantee sufficient living space and quality of care at shelters run by the Taipei Animal Protection Office.
Photo: CNA
Taipei should also diversify its options for pet adoption, such as by allowing people to foster animals and encouraging programs for campus, workplace and emotional support dogs, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said that if he is elected, he would implement several pet-related policies, including, most eye-catchingly, opening Taiwan’s first “pet amusement park” by the end of his first term.
On a more modest scale, the former health minister said his administration would improve the quality of the city’s 19 dog parks, ensuring that each has drinking water available to dogs and access to shady spaces for their owners.
Photo: CNA
Other planks of Chen’s platform, which he released on Facebook on Monday, include building a “long-term care system” for older pets and launching courses to educate people on the responsibilities of pet ownership.
Former Taipei deputy mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), who is running as an independent, has yet to put forward pet-related policy proposals, although she recently hit out at Chen for bringing his Shiba Inu to campaign events.
“Pets are like family. There’s no need to use them as electoral props,” she said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS