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.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its