Taipei and Shanghai were expected to forge a pact last night on exchanges over rare animal conservation, including swapping animals as gifts and know-how in animal care and reproduction.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) was to pay a visit to the Shanghai Wild Animals Park yesterday to gain a better understanding of how the Shanghai Zoo takes care of its pandas.
During the visit, Taipei Zoo officials who are accompanying Hau on a five-day visit to Shanghai, were expected to ink an agreement on rare animal conservation exchanges between the two cities.
PHOTO: CNA
Under the agreement — scheduled to take effect next year — Taipei would give orangutans, white-handed gibbons and sun bears to Shanghai as gifts, while in return Shanghai would send snub-nosed monkeys, Chinese alligators and lesser pandas.
Meanwhile, Lin Hua-ching (林華慶), director of Taipei Zoo’s Wildlife Conservation Research Center, said the two giant pandas that China had promised as gifts to Taiwan were unlikely to arrive in September as initially planned.
Lin said that several factors were behind the delay, including the impact of the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, where the Wolong giant panda reserve is located, and high temperatures that would make it difficult for the pandas to adapt to their new environment.
He said the pair would probably arrive in November or December.
Lin denied speculation that officials at the Wolong reserve would meet the mayor and Taipei Zoo officials in Shanghai to “make a decision on Wolong’s gift of the two pandas to Taipei City.”
He said that many cities around Taiwan had expressed a strong interest in housing the pandas and that it was up to China to decide which city would receive the animals.
“China will assess the suitability of the cities based on the environment, facilities and other conditions,” Lin said.
Hau and his delegation of Taipei City Government officials and councilors arrived on Monday.
The mayor, Taiwan’s first elected municipal chief to travel to China, is in Shanghai to witness the signing of an agreement confirming Taipei’s participation in World Expo Shanghai 2010, scheduled to be held from May 1 through Oct. 31.
Hau is scheduled to meet Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng (韓正) today to witness the signing of the agreement.
Business tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of the Hon Hai Group and who has promised to build Taipei City’s pavilion at the expo, will also attend the signing ceremony.
Gou signed an accord with Hau in Taipei on Sunday stipulating that an education foundation under the Hon Hai Group would plan, fund, construct and operate the pavilion. The project has a price tag of NT$300 million (US$9.87 million).
During his stay in Shanghai, Hau visited a development project intended to turn Shanghai’s Hongqiao Airport into a multiple transportation hub, which could serve as a model for the future modernization of Songshan Airport in Taipei.
With cross-strait flights set to begin next month, the city has been mulling plans to revamp the aging airport.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS