A Taiwanese research team banded a juvenile Chinese crested tern (Thalasseus bernsteini) in July, hoping to track its migration and learn more about the “mythical” bird that roosts in three groups of islands off the southeastern coast of China from May to August, a Forestry Bureau official said.
It was the first-ever successful banding of a Chinese crested tern, Forestry Bureau conservation official Hsia Jung-sheng (夏榮生) said.
The rare species nests in Taiwan’s Matsu (馬祖), as well as Jiushan and Wuzhishan islands off China’s Zhejiang Province from May to August and locals consider it a summer migratory bird.
Photo: Courtesy of the Forestry Bureau
The population of the bird was estimated at less than 50 in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List in 2000 and it is categorized as critically endangered, Hsia said.
Nature photographer Liang Chieh-te (梁皆得) happened to photograph the Chinese crested terns in Matsu while filming his documentary Fly, Kite Fly (老鷹想飛) in 2000.
To conserve the species, the Forestry Bureau and the Lienchiang County Government commissioned a research team led by National Taiwan University School of Forestry and Resource Conservation professor Yuan Hsiao-wei (袁孝維) and the Wild Bird Society of Taipei to conduct studies to understand the birds’ behavior.
Taiwanese and Chinese research teams recorded 99 Chinese crested terns in the three island groups from May to August, a record high for the rare bird, Hsia said.
The researchers banded the juvenile in mid-July, saw it again in early August and estimated that it had left the islands in late August, Hsia said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to