Specialists and government officials are working to determine whether large amounts of animal bones discovered in sacks abandoned by the roadside in Keelung last week are from dogs or pigs.
The Keelung Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office is offering a NT$100,000 (US$3,330) reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person who left more than 100 sacks of bones along the city’s Qian Industry Road, which were discovered on Thursday last week and are suspected to be the remains of dogs that were cooked and consumed.
Wu Sheng-hai (吳聲海), an assistant professor in National Chung Hsing University’s Department of Life Sciences, said that based on photographs of the jawbones and teeth that were released in the media, he thinks that the bones are from pigs, because dogs’ teeth look sharp from the side and are narrower.
“Just look at the teeth of your dog at home and you will understand,” he said, criticizing the office for its apparent inability to tell pigs from dogs.
Wu should not spread rumors after merely looking at photographs, office Director Chen Jui-pin (陳瑞濱) said, adding that the bones have been sent to the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau for examination and the results will be published in three weeks.
The Wild Animal Memorial Club, an online fanclub dedicated to wildlife protection, on Facebook criticized the office for offering a reward before identifying the bones.
Chen said the office on Thursday asked National Taiwan University and the Council of Agriculture’s (COA) Animal Health Research Institute to help identify the bones, but they only identified the flesh, not the bones, which were sent to the bureau for examination on Friday.
The sacks were full of maggots and emitted a horrible smell; they contained dog bones and the office is working with the police to solve the case, said Chen, who holds a master’s degree in veterinary medicine.
“Your words are unjust to the investigators that are working hard on the case,” Chen said, referring to Wu’s comments.
Even if only one dog bone is found in the sacks, that would constitute a violation of the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法), Chen said, adding that if the bones are from pigs, abandoning them by the road violated the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法) and the case would nonetheless be investigated.
COA Animal Protection section chief Jiang Wen-chuan (江文全) said he suggested that the office send the bones over for examination.
If the bones are confirmed to be from dogs, the offender could be sentenced to up to two years in prison and a fine of between NT$200,000 and NT$2 million.
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
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
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
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