The Council of Agriculture will review two applications to house a pair of pandas that China has offered Taiwan, an official at the Forestry Bureau said yesterday.
Fang Guo-yun (方國運), chief of the Forestry Bureau’s department of nature conservation, said a panel would be established on Thursday to review the applications by the Taipei Zoo and the Leofoo Safari Zoo in Hsinchu County.
The Leofoo Safari Zoo has recently signed an agreement with the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding to exchange information, experiences and ideas on conservation, the zoo said.
Taichung City has also shown interest in housing the pandas, but has not applied, Fang said.
“The key points of the review will include the training of the animals’ keepers and veterinarians, as well as the facilities ... where the pandas will be kept,” he said.
The pandas were offered after a visit by then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to China in 2005.
The offer was rejected by the council under the former Democratic Progressive Party government, which said Taiwan did not have facilities for the animals.
After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was elected in March, he said he would be pleased to see the pandas come to Taiwan.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
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