Kaohsiung has culled 238 green iguanas so far this year, under a program that it began in 2013 to maintain an ecological balance, a city official said yesterday.
In 2013, it was found that the city’s Niaosong District (鳥松) was a major habitat for wild green iguanas, the official said, citing a field study done by National Pingtung University of Science and Technology.
The Kaohsiung Bureau of Agriculture later that year commissioned the university to cull the non-native reptiles to help avert ecological and environmental problems, the official said.
The iguana population in Kaohsiung has grown as a result of owners of pet iguanas abandoning or releasing the reptiles into the wild, the official said.
In the period between June and December 2013, 107 green iguanas were captured in Kaohsiung, the official said.
Since then, the official said, the numbers have dropped significantly as 74 were culled last year and 238 have been captured so far this year.
The official said the reptiles have been found not just in Niaosong, but also in the city’s Cianjhen (前鎮), Siaogang (小港), Sanmin (三民) and Zihguan (梓官) districts.
Green iguanas tend to eat mostly crickets and animal eggs when they are young.
Healthy adult iguanas can measure up to 1.5m in length and might damage and destroy plants, shrubs, trees and flowers, including orchids, the official said.
If the reptiles reproduce in large numbers, they can also pose a threat to Taiwan’s indigenous species, the official added.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS