The government is likely to purchase air guns from a Chinese manufacturer to control the invasive green iguana population that is damaging crops, an industry association said.
The Ministry of Agriculture last year proposed the use of air guns to help cull iguanas in the wild, which are estimated to number up to 200,000, and announced last month that it hopes to cull 120,000 of the invasive animals this year.
However, the law restricts domestic manufacturers to producing air guns with an output of less than 2 joules, and prohibits the manufacture of high-kinetic-energy air guns exclusively for export or for the control of harmful species.
Photo: Liao Chia-ning, Taipei Times
The Taiwan Airsoft and Airgun Association in 2016 had petitioned for a “special permit to open up the manufacturing and export of toy guns with a capacity of more than 3 joules.”
However, following discussions with the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the Executive Yuan at the time concluded that the law should remain unchanged out of a “consideration of maintaining public order,” and said the issue was “sensitive and risky.”
Whether regulations could be adjusted under special considerations would require joint discussion and evaluation involving the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection, the Industrial Development Administration (IDA), the National Police Agency (NPA) and other government agencies, the MOEA said.
Given the restrictions on the domestic market and the complexity involved with easing them, the government was likely to purchase airsoft guns from China to deal with the iguana problem, the association said.
The Forestry Bureau previously sought to work with domestic air gun manufacturers to deal with the removal of the invasive African sacred ibis, but faced similar difficulties and resorted to purchasing air guns from China, it said.
“As long as the NPA has concerns about public security, the discussion is unlikely to go anywhere,” it said, and called on the MOEA to refer to other countries’ regulations concerning air guns.
The IDA said that part of the reason for the regulations is that it must work with the NPA to manage the traceability of gun components, including those of air guns and toy guns.
Part of that process involved import controls and the requirement for manufacturers to provide codes for the key components of those guns, it said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS