Yilan fishers catch ‘living fossil’ with six babies

Yilan fishers catch ‘living fossil’ with six babies

2023-06-13

Moving now to Yilan, where fishers caught a peculiar-looking sea creature called the goblin shark. Initially they intended to sell the shark to a restaurant. But the Taiwan Ocean Artistic Museum bought it off them, for preservation as a specimen.

Chen Hsueh-li
Taiwan Specimen Artistic Association director
It’s incredibly special. This is possibly the largest one caught in recent decades.

Lin Fang-min
Yilan Marine and Fisheries Development Office
This species is distributed across temperate and tropical seas all over the world. It lives about 200 meters below sea level, and it’s a relatively rare shark. Although it’s not a protected species at present, because it’s very rare, we urge fishers not to haul it in.

The goblin shark is known as the “living fossil,” because its lineage traces back for more than 100 million years. It has a long snout and a mouth full of tiny sharp teeth. It can grow as long as 5 meters. The one in Yilan was caught at 800 meters below sea level. It was 4.7 meters long and weighed in at about 800 kilograms. Fishers found that it had six baby sharks in its belly.

古老活化石! 漁民捕獲罕見"歐氏尖吻鯊"

2023-06-13

宜蘭南方澳漁民，在外海捕撈到一尾長相非常特殊的鯊魚，名叫歐式尖吻鯊。原本漁民要賣給餐廳，後來被台灣海洋藝術館即時收購，要做為標本。

[[台灣標本藝術協會理事長陳雪麗]]
“非常特別，可能這一隻是近幾十年來抓到唯一最大的。”

[[宜蘭縣政府海洋所長林芳民]]
“分布在全世界溫帶及熱帶的海域，生活環境大概在水深200公尺以下，是比較罕見的一種鯊魚。雖然目前不是保育類的物種，但因為非常的罕見，我們也是不建議說漁民去進行一些捕撈的行為。”

歐式劍吻鯊在生活在地球已經有1億多年的歷史，有長長的前吻，滿嘴尖牙，最長可達5米，而這次漁民在海深約800米處捕撈的這隻鯊魚，身長4.7米，重達約800公斤，肚中還有6隻小鯊魚。

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The health ministry ran urine tests on 27 children involved in New Taipei’s preschool drugging scandal, and the first 14 tests had come back negative. On Tuesday, another 12 tests returned negative. Now only one test is still pending.

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The results are all negative. It is in line with what we had expected, because it is likely that the half-life of the drugs has passed, or that they’ve been metabolized or excreted. We have records from 31 phone call inquiries. They are willing to offer hair samples for testing. Drugs can be detected in hair samples for more than three months.

The DPP accuses New Taipei City of reacting too slowly, forcing investigators to miss the window for performing drug tests.

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The city government dragged its feet for more than 20 days before deciding to do a drug test. It deliberately waited until the drugs would not show up in a test. That is fact. The Hou administration is lying to society, and it’s using the judiciary to cover up the truth. The heads of the relevant agencies and departments refuse to acknowledge they made a mistake in their decision-making process, or admit that the city government handled the matter poorly. All this has left parents feeling anxious and helpless.

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On May 22, a parent called the Education Department headed by Chang Ming-wen 張明文. The department said that it wouldn’t be until the following week that a task force would be formed. They told the parent to call again one week later.

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The investigation was launched on May 15.

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The parent called on May 22, there is a record of the call.

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Many people don’t know that Taipei City has adopted these colorful crossings from Singapore. Officials want road users to slow down when crossing them. The markings were trialed on five crossings in 2020, and found to effectively increase the braking of drivers by 5-10%. This year, officials are focused on rolling them out on school-run streets with no traffic lights. Eighty-six more crossings will be introduced by the end of 2023.

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Member of public
They don’t make any difference. Everyone is the same. Nobody slows down.

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I always slow down a bit when I come to a junction, anyway, but will seeing that make people slow down? It would be better to paint a big “slow” sign on it.

Taipei City has previously run trials of a 3-D colorful zebra crossing, but it was removed after being found ineffective as well as likely to cause scooters to slide. Meanwhile, this is another special zebra crossing that’s more and more common on the street.

It has three extra lines – they’re guidelines for blind people. It’s 40 centimeters wider than a standard zebra crossing, and it’s easier to detect with a walking stick.

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All the workers are wrapped up head to toe in hygienic uniform here at this fruit-cutting plant in Kaohsiung’s Qishan District. But one young face is bound to catch your attention: This is Chang Nai-wen.

She single-handedly managed a refit of the whole factory’s cold chain, as well as an upgrade of the processing procedures. But three years ago, she was completely ignorant of agriculture.

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It was really because of my shiba inu. Whenever I have free time I want to come home and chill with her. So I went along to have a look, and thought it seemed great and I was interested.

Chang jokes that she moved back home and got into the industry to have more time to spend with her dog. She had to start from scratch in studying agriculture, but she’s serious about bringing change to this seemingly traditional industry.

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