Tama Talum, a Bunun elder who was pardoned for charges stemming from hunting with a gun, on Saturday test-fired a shotgun given to him in Taitung County’s Haiduan Township (海端).
Marang Ngaday, an airsoft gun dealer, presented Tama Talum with the double-barrel 20-gauge Samoon Diamond shotgun, the Taiwan Hunting Research Association said in a statement.
Tama Talum signed an agreement with Marang Ngaday, a representative of Taoyuan-based Samoon Co, for the gun, which the Ministry of the Interior has approved for use in traditional hunting activity by indigenous people.
Photo: Screen grab from TITV News
Chen Tsai-yi (陳采邑), who represented Tama Talum in the court case, and other Bunun attended the ceremony.
“Safe use of guns is a principle we stand by,” the association said. “We thank everyone who stood with us through the long fight for justice for Tama Talum.”
“Saturday was also the 10th anniversary of a protest outside Haiduan Culture Hall at which the Bunun community supported Tama Talum’s appeal against his conviction,” it said.
“Today Tama Talum fired the new gun for the first time, letting the shot echo through the valley,” it said, adding that the sound represented justice against the wrongful conviction.
“We hope other indigenous hunters would benefit from the new policy direction of the ministry,” it said.
The association thanked legislators Saidhai Tahovecahe and Sra Kacaw for their work to amend legislation regarding indigenous hunting rights, as well as officials at the National Police Agency for changing regulations to allow Samoon to import the ministry-approved “indigenous hunting guns” and ammunition.
Tama Talum was arrested in 2013 after he killed a Formosan serow and a Reeve’s muntjac.
He told the courts that he killed the animals to cook for his ailing mother, who preferred wild game. His mother died in 2022 at the age of 100.
Prosecutors had indicted him over contraventions of the Act on Wildlife Conservation (野生動物保育法) — which at the time only permitted indigenous people to hunt for ritual purposes, not for regular food — as well as the Firearms, Ammunition, and Knives Control Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) over illegal use of a modified gun.
Defense lawyers said that hunting is an important part of indigenous culture.
The Taitung District Court in 2015 convicted Tama Talum and sentenced him to three-and-a-half years in prison.
However, he appealed the ruling and was acquitted by the Supreme Court last year of charges that were not covered by a pardon issued by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2021.
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