A Formosan black bear broke into a hut in Chiayi County‘s Dabang Village (達邦), eating canned goods and food from the resident’s refrigerator, the first officially recorded incident of its kind in the area, local authorities said on Thursday.
Personnel were dispatched to inspect the site and set up trail cameras to track the bear after receiving a report on Wednesday, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s Chiayi branch said in a statement.
The agency released photos showing an open refrigerator, broken eggs in a carton, and empty food cans inside the hut in Dabang, which sits high in the mountains at an elevation of 1,190m.
Photo courtesy of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency
Specialists found tracks near the hut and, based on the damaged canned food, concluded that a Formosan black bear was responsible, the agency said.
Alishan is an area where Formosan black bears are occasionally sighted, but Wednesday’s incident was the first officially recorded case of a bear entering a resident’s hut, according to the agency, which is part of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Over the past three years, Formosan black bears have been spotted five times near the southern end of the Tefuye Historic Trail (特富野古道), about 10km from Dabang, with the most recent sighting occurring just 500m from the trail in October last year, according to a news release by the agency three weeks ago.
People hiking in the area are urged to carry noisemakers and bear spray to deter bears, while the agency has distributed bear repellent gear to local residents following Wednesday’s incident, the agency said.
The Tefuye Historic Trail, near Yushan National Park, is a potential habitat for the species, according to Hwang Mei-hsiu (黃美秀), a professor at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s Institute of Wildlife Conservation.
The recent sightings of Formosan black bears captured on camera are due to increased monitoring and do not represent unusual behavior, Hwang said during a Taiwan Public Television Service interview on Dec. 12.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
GIVE AND TAKE: Blood demand continues to rise each year, while fewer young donors are available due to the nation’s falling birthrate, a doctor said Blood donors can redeem points earned from donations to obtain limited edition Formosan black bear travel mugs, the Kaohsiung Blood Center said yesterday, as it announced a goal of stocking 20,000 units of blood prior to the Lunar New Year. The last month of the lunar year is National Blood Donation Month, when local centers seek to stockpile blood for use during the Lunar New Year holiday. The blood demand in southern Taiwan — including Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Chiayi, Pingtung, Penghu and Taitung counties — is about 2,000 units per day, the center said. The donation campaign aims to boost
ENHANCING EFFICIENCY: The apron can accommodate 16 airplanes overnight at Taoyuan airport while work on the third runway continues, the transport minister said A new temporary overnight parking apron at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to start operating on Friday next week to boost operational efficiency while the third runway is being constructed, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The apron — one of the crucial projects in the construction of the third runway — can accommodate 16 aircraft overnight at the nation’s largest international airport, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told reporters while inspecting the new facility yesterday morning. Aside from providing the airport operator with greater flexibility in aircraft parking during the third runway construction,
American climber Alex Honnold is to attempt a free climb of Taipei 101 today at 9am, with traffic closures around the skyscraper. To accommodate the climb attempt and filming, the Taipei Department of Transportation said traffic controls would be enforced around the Taipei 101 area. If weather conditions delay the climb, the restrictions would be pushed back to tomorrow. Traffic controls would be in place today from 7am to 11am around the Taipei 101 area, the department said. Songzhi Road would be fully closed in both directions between Songlian Road and Xinyi Road Sec 5, it said, adding that bidirectional traffic controls would
RSS