A top Council of Agriculture official yesterday said it might develop facial recognition technology for pet registration to replace chipping, in an effort to address the country’s growing stray dog population.
Director of Animal Industry Hsieh Yao-ching (謝耀清), who is newly appointed, made the surprising remark during his maiden question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
More shelters are urgently needed to help local governments control the stray dog population, but the issue should be tackled at its source, Hsieh said, referring to people abandoning their pets.
“Mandatory chipping has not been a policy success and we are evaluating the viability of using facial recognition,” Hsieh said.
Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) told lawmakers that the government is experiencing difficulties in making all shelters in the country “no-kill shelters.”
Since the council started implementing the policy in February, local governments have been reporting overcrowding at animal shelters and an uptick of stray dogs on their streets, sources have said.
“Because of the policy, some parts of the country now have no space in animal shelters at all,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Li-shan (張麗善) said.
The council had been given all the money it asked for to implement the policy and should therefore do a better job, she said.
Lin Tsung-hsien replied that the no-kill shelter policy had been a rushed decision.
“Frankly, local governments and the general public are simply not ready for it,” he said.
“It is not true that some localities have no available shelters,” Lin Tsung-hsien said. “However, the additional capacity that is needed has generally failed to materialize, because while people want animal shelters, they do not want them in their back yards.”
The “nine-in-one” elections for local government heads and councilors are next year, further complicating handling the issue at the local level, Lin Tsung-hsien said.
The council is having internal discussions to develop a differentiated strategy to deal with the stray animal issue that takes differences between urban and rural areas into account, he added.
The tentative solution would involve some form of collaboration between local veterinarians and municipal or county governments, Lin Tsung-hsien said.
When Hsieh was asked to clarify his comments about facial recognition technology for animals, he said the idea was still being explored.
“I will tell the public more about this proposal after we collect enough information,” he said.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
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