A male “liger” cub — an illegally bred cross between a male lion and a tigress — died on Friday, with another listed in critical condition, an animal shelter said yesterday.
Pei Jai-chyi (裴家騏), director of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s Protected Animal Rescue Center in southern Taiwan, said the two ligers were in poor condition when they were brought to the center on Monday.
“The two ligers were obviously underweight and had weak immune systems when they arrived,” Pei said.
He said the animals have a poor chance of survival and are also prone to genetic problems.
“Ligers usually suffer from genetic problems due to the cross-breeding of the two species, putting the cubs in a dangerous situation from the moment they are born,” he said.
He added that the two cubs had been in intensive care since their arrival, which meant there had been no opportunity to conduct health checks on them.
Pei said the male cub was sent for an autopsy after it died and was found to have accumulated fluid in its lungs. It also had a distended kidney and spleen.
They were two of three ligers born to a tigeress in a private zoo in southern Taiwan. One of the cubs died of hypothermia shortly after birth, while the remaining two were confiscated and taken to the center for intensive care.
Huang Kuo-nan (黃國男), the owner of the zoo in Tainan County, has been accused of violating the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法) and fined NT$50,000 (US$1,565) for allowing the animals to breed, an amount criticized by an animal protection group as being “too little to pay for such illegal behavior.”
Commenting on the case, Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) said he found the Council of Agriculture’s (COA) decision to relocate the cubs inappropriate as Huang, the original owner, has years of experience taking care of the animals and knows how to take care of them.
If the COA had informed him prior to the decision, he would have insisted on not relocating the cubs, Su said.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
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