National Taiwan Ocean University is to discontinue an emergency care program for sea turtles this year, its Maritime Ecology and Conservation Lab said yesterday, citing a shortage of personnel and funds, as well as a general lack of respect from the Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA).
OCA Deputy Director Wu Long-ching (吳龍靜) said the agency respected the lab’s decision.
Local government departments would resume oversight of turtle care projects, Wu added.
Photo: CNA
The agency previously funded the university’s project directly, but the method proved “inappropriate,” Wu said, adding that it instead sought to implement a bidding mechanism for turtle care funding.
Wu encouraged local government departments to apply for funding, saying that it would ensure that the turtle care efforts continue.
Lab director Cheng I-jiunn (程一駿) said the primary reason for the discontinuation was funding issues.
Cheng, a professor at the Keelung-based university, previously said the lab would apply for continued funding of NT$1.6 million to NT$1.8 million (US$53,872 to US$60,606).
However, Cheng said the funding mechanism had been changed into a government project that accepts bids from external institutions.
Due to funding issues, the lab only employs one assistant, Cheng said, adding that it still owes NT$50,000 in wages to previous lab assistants.
Its debt totaled about NT$1 million, he said.
Cheng said the OCA did not respect the lab’s expertise.
“This lab was established to provide correct information, not imagined information that the OCA wishes it to provide,” Cheng said.
Cheng cited an incident during the Lunar New Year holiday last year in which a leatherback sea turtle was found entangled in a fishing net.
Although the turtle was still alive, “I knew it was beyond our help,” Cheng said, adding that he at the time decided that it should die in peace.
However, after the turtle died in a pool operated by the lab’s project, a volunteer from one of the animal protection groups that had helped it transport the turtle accused the lab of causing the turtle’s death, Cheng said.
University secretary-general Lin Cheng-ping (林正平) yesterday said the school would look into the funding issue and, if necessary, provide financial assistance.
The OCA said it has set aside funding for emergency sea turtle care and rescue programs, which were previously provided by the lab in northern Taiwan and the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology in southern Taiwan.
The OCA said it this year sought assistance from other groups after the lab stopped providing its services.
So far, the groups had carried out 13 missions that involved sea turtles being stranded, it said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS