The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday said it shot and killed a Formosan black bear in Hualien County on Monday evening, after the animal ran toward agency personnel who were conducting a patrol.
The bear had been spotted attacking a dog in Jhuosi Village (卓溪) at about 9pm, and moved aggressively toward patrol members after being shouted at, prompting one officer to fire a single shot, the agency’s Hualien branch said.
The wounded bear collapsed in a nearby ditch, and was later sedated and examined by veterinarians after being sent to an animal hospital, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency
The bear sustained multiple spinal fractures, a collapsed lung and internal bleeding, and was euthanized under deep anesthesia due to the severity of its injuries.
The animal was identified as YNP-BB02, a black bear released four years ago by the Yushan National Park Headquarters as part of a research and tracking program.
The agency under the Ministry of Agriculture said the bear had preyed on four dogs and raided poultry over a 10-day period in Jhuosi Village, with its most recent sighting less than 100m from Chongcheng Village (中正) alarming residents.
Due to its abnormal, predatory behavior, the agency and Yushan National Park Headquarters coordinated plans to capture the animal, while night patrols conducted by the agency and local residents were also deployed to ensure public safety.
After the shooting, a 28-person response team from the agency, Yushan National Park Headquarters and civil society wildlife conservation groups assisted at the scene.
The bear’s carcass would be sent to the ministry’s Veterinary Research Institute for a full necropsy, the agency said.
Because killing a bear is considered taboo by the indigenous Bunun community who live in Chongcheng Village, local residents planned a purification ritual to take place yesterday, which the agency said it would attend.
The agency expressed “deep regret” over the death of the animal, but said the shooting complied with the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法) and was necessary to protect human life.
The incident highlights increasing conflict between humans and bears in rural Taiwan, the agency said, adding that lessons learned from this incident would inform future conservation efforts.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS