The Taipei City Animal Protection Office hopes schools can adopt more stray animals to alleviate the pressure on the city’s shelters, which are over capacity, the office said on Saturday.
A ban on euthanizing stray animals that went into effect on Feb. 4, 2017, resulted in nearly 1,000 strays for the city’s shelters to take in, it said.
The office in 2015 began working with the city’s Department of Education and other groups to promote the adoption of strays by public schools, but so far only 33 of the city’s 236 public schools have taken in animals, it said.
“Adoption is not something we can force. Schools have to be willing to take in the animals,” the department said.
There were 989 strays in the city’s shelters as of last month — 674 dogs and 315 cats — the office said.
The office said it hopes the city’s stray dogs could be adopted as inspection animals for customs officials, companion dogs for people with anxiety or other issues, service dogs for blind people, or other roles where they could serve people.
It also hopes that more of the city’s schools would adopt stray cats and dogs as school pets, which could reduce the pressure on the shelters, it said.
“As of September, 33 schools in Taipei had collectively adopted 30 dogs and 50 cats,” department Director Chen Yi-tsung (諶亦聰) said, adding that the department has provided those schools with equipment to help care for the animals, and has provided subsidies for vaccinations and animal feed.
Caring for the animals complements the schools’ biology classes and gives the students a better appreciation for animal life, she said.
Keelung’s Mingde Municipal Junior High School has also adopted cats and dogs from Taipei shelters, she said.
Shilin High School of Commerce in Taipei took in three dogs and 10 cats all at once — more than any other school that is working with the department on animal adoption, she said.
The department has given the school NT$470,000 in subsidies, she said.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS