More than 1,000 students and visitors crowded the Taipei Zoo’s panda hall yesterday morning as zoo officials opened it for an hour to test capacity and animal viewing arrangements.
Zoo officials expect the two giant pandas to attract more than 6 million visitors in the first year, saying they will issue numbered slips to visitors at the panda hall to prevent them from waiting in long lines.
The zoo has installed slip machines at each of its eight entrances, and will limit visitors to just 10 minutes in the hall.
PHOTO: AP
“It was so crowded in the hall, and 10 minutes was not enough. I think things will get messier when the pandas arrive,” a visitor surnamed Chen said as she left the hall.
The Taipei City Government this week said that the two pandas would arrive in Taiwan on Tuesday and police would escort them from the airport to the zoo for a one-month quarantine period.
Taipei Zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) said yesterday that the hall would be open from 9am to 5pm each day, and visitors who wish to see the pandas would be required to take a slip with a designated visiting time at the entrance. The hall can hold about 500 people, Yeh said.
The zoo will station 30 staff members to maintain order in the hall, and will install six 42-inch TV screens outside to provide live coverage of the pandas’ movements, he said.
The public is expected to be able to get its first glimpse of the pandas as early as Jan. 23, Lunar New Year’s eve.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) urged the city government to wait until after Jan. 23 to open the hall because zoo staff would have to work extra shifts on the day their families reunite for Lunar New Year.
In related news, Tang Cheng-juei (唐呈瑞), director of the Kaohsiung City Scenic Area Administration, said on Wednesday that the city was preparing to import two white tigers from China to be placed in the Shoushan Zoo in June.
The rare animals are a gift from Guangzhou’s Xiangjiang Safari Park to promote friendship between the two cities, Tang said.
Additional reporting by CNA
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS