Members of the Animal Rescue Team Taiwan are calling for better enforcement of laws prohibiting the use of animal traps, after three dogs in Kaohsiung lost their legs to the devices last week.
One of the injured dogs, which lost a front leg, was nursing a litter when it was found, the team said.
Laws should be amended to allow the city’s Animal Protection Office to more effectively seize traps to prevent a recurrence of such “heart-wrenching” incidents, they added.
Photo courtesy of Animal Rescue Team Taiwan
Last week, the team was called to rescue three dogs in the city’s Liouguei (六龜) and Tianliao (田寮) districts, and Singda Harbor (興達港), and rushed the dogs to surgery to save their lives, the team said.
Article 14-2 of the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) prohibits the manufacture, sale, import, export and display of animal traps unless authorized by the central government.
The act was amended on June 29, 2011, because the authorities said the traps were a “cruel implement of slaughter and should forever disappear from Taiwan,” rescue team spokesperson Anthony Ni (倪京台) said.
Photo courtesy of Animal Rescue Team Taiwan
Despite the amendment, the number of cases handled by the team involving cats and dogs mutilated by traps has not dropped over the past seven years, he said.
Only 10 percent of animals caught in traps have been saved, with a majority dying from sepsis, he said.
Protected animals also get caught in the traps, Ni said, citing reports of leopard cats and Formosan bears coming in contact with the devices.
Moreover the Animal Protection Act only prohibits the manufacture, sale, import, export and display of traps, but not ownership — a legal loophole that many people exploit, he said.
“Faced with the threat of their traps being seized, some people simply tell authorities that they had bought the traps long ago and that they are only keeping them in storage,” he said.
In 2016, the Kaohsiung City Government was the first in the nation to introduce a municipal ordinance that closed this loophole by banning ownership of traps, he said.
City authorities informed the local hardware association about the ordinance and conducted random inspections of association members, he said.
However, the law is difficult to enforce in remote mountain communities, he said.
Every year the Kaohsiung Animal Protection Office offers free vaccination shots for rabies and other diseases to pet owners in remote rural communities.
In the process of administering vaccines it usually encounters pets with severed limbs, which their owners say were caused by the pets running off into the mountains and forests, the office said.
“Some of the traps are made by people on their own. This is just something you cannot guard against,” Ni said.
The office cooperates with local government offices and civic animal protection groups to search for traps in the mountains, and posts signage along mountain trails to remind the public that traps are illegal, he said.
The Animal Protection Act stipulates that those found making, selling, importing, exporting or exhibiting traps may be fined up to NT$75,000 (US$2,436), while Kaohsiung’s municipal ordinance prohibiting trap ownership stipulates a fine of NT$15,000.
If the use of a trap results in the death or debilitation of an animal, the owner of the trap may be fined up to NT$2 million and face up to two years in prison, as stipulated in Article 25 of the act, Animal Protection Office director Yeh Kun-sung (葉坤松) said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as