Tue, Aug 08, 2023 page3

• Leopard cats still endangered: agency

  STILL CLIMBING: While long-term monitoring showed that the density of leopard cats has been rising, their relative abundance has not yet stabilized, the forestry agency said

  • By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
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  Taiwan’s leopard cats remain critically endangered, despite a steady increase of their population, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said yesterday.

  Monitoring the only surviving endemic cat species is part of the agency’s long-term project to observe the population levels of medium and large mammals in Taiwan, it said.

  As of last year, 326 automatic infrared cameras had been installed in state-owned forests to monitor some of the mammals native to Taiwan, including Formosan sambar deer, Taiwan serows and yellow-throated martens, which are a protected species, as well as Formosan rock macaques, Reeves’ muntjacs, Formosan hares and Siberian weasels.

  

  A leopard cat is pictured in an undated photograph.

  Photo courtesy of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency

  Sightings indicate that the populations of these species have increased, the agency said.

  Numbers of protected Formosan pangolins and civets, as well as Formosan wild boars and masked palm civets, have maintained steady growth, it said.

  In general, animal populations whose natural habitats are in forests are growing steadily, it added.

  Although the agency has spotted leopard cats in Taichung, and Miaoli and Nantou counties, it mainly monitored fluctuations in their numbers in Nantou County, the agency said.

  “Results of long-term monitoring showed the density of leopard cats has been rising steadily. However, its relative abundance — how common or rare a species is relative to other species in a location or a community — has yet to stabilize. This means that leopard cats remain a critically endangered species,” it said.

  Regarding Formosan black bears, another endangered species, the agency said that more data were needed to determine if the animal’s relative abundance is statistically significant.

  By comparing reports of sightings and monitoring data, the agency said it found that Formosan black bears had expanded their activities in mountains.

  “We estimate that they would be found by humans or would invade human settlements more frequently,” it said, adding that it would educate the public how to manage conflicts with wildlife.

  The agency said it would also expand the installation of automatic infrared cameras to hills and plains outside of state-owned forests, which would enable it to conduct more comprehensive analyses on the long-term changes of animal species.

  In other news, animal scientists in the Ministry of Agriculture’s Taiwan Biodiversity Research Institute in June found coconut crabs while conducting research along the coastal highways of Green Island.

  Coconut crabs are a rarely seen protected species listed in the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法). They live mainly in coastal areas of southeast Taiwan, including in Pingtung and Taitung counties as well as outlying islands off the east coast, the institute said.

  The finding is a major discovery as they identified multiple young coconut crabs of various sizes, each having a carapace of about 1cm to 3cm long, it said, adding that the group included crabs of one to five years old.

  “Previously, we had also discovered multiple large and mature coconut crabs at the same site, which shows that this is an important habitat for coconut crabs,” the institute said.

  Institute researchers said that coconut crabs live in tropical forests near the coast.

  They are called coconut crabs as they are good at climbing straight coconut trees and using their pincers to break open coconut shells to eat the pulp inside, they said.

  Coconut crabs belong to the terrestrial hermit crab family and live with a shell on their backs like hermit crabs, the institution said.

  After egg-bearing female crabs release larvae at the seaside, the larvae floats in the ocean for nearly one month before carrying a shell to live in sandy vegetation above tidal zones, it said.

  After two years living in the sandy habitat, they shed their shells and enter the coastal forests to start their next stage of life. Male crabs need at least five years to become sexually mature, when they weigh about 1kg.
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