Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996
Taiwan police find six tonnes of dolphin heads
TAIPEI, Jan 12 (Reuter) - Police in Taiwan have found six tonnes of dolphin heads in a freezer and suspect that a giant crime syndicate may have been responsible for killing the animals, state television reported on Friday.
Police said they arrested one man, Wu Wan-chiao, for operating the freezer in the eastern coastal county of Yunlin, but Wu so far has refused to say where the dolphins came from.
"We face this incident with a heavy heart and hope to intensify our efforts in this area in the future," an official from the cabinet's Council of Agriculture said on state television.
The police suspect that a large crime syndicate may have smuggled and killed the dolphins, state television reported. Taiwan has been criticised in the past for failing to enforce international conservation laws that ban the killing of endangered animals.
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996
From: Lien-Siang Chou
Regarding the news of illegal dolphin carcasses found by the Taiwan
police, I was invited to help communicate correct information, including
species identification. I offer the following corrections and amendments:
- 1. The total weight was 12 tonnes (not 6 tonnes) of dolphin body pieces (not head only), which including heads, body trunks, and meat in boxes.
- 2. This case was discovered in the western (not eastern) coastal county, Yunlin.
- 3. For 54 individuals, the species could be identified by 52 heads (include 7 whole bodies), and 3 pieces of Kogia (2 piece with left lipper, and one piece with doral fin). These consisted of
- 15 Tursiops truncatus (gilli type)
- 19 Stenella attenuata
- 10 Stenella longirostris
- 7 Steno bredanensis
- 1 Delphinus delphis
- 2 Kogia sp. (at least one Kogia breviceps)
- 4. In addition, there were187 boxes, about one fourth to third of the whole content, containing only meat, and weighed about 12-15 kg each. All meat was dark red in color. Therefore, it seems unlikly that it came from great whales. Roughtly another one third of content was dolphin carcass piece with blubber, almost all of them belong to the species listed above.
- 5. I have muscle samples in DMSO from 23 randomly-selected boxes 4 unknown body trunk pieces and 54 identified individuals as well. My students are going to run the DNA analysis in the Molecular Lab. of the department Chairman, Dr. Yao-Sung Lin. It might be a good idea to invite one foreign DNA lab. to duplicate the analysis. Any one interests, please contact me and let me know the budget and process.
** Another illegal case:
Based on the statement from the accused in this case, Mr. WU, police uncovered another illegal dolphin meat seller in the eastern coastal county, Taidung. In this case, there were 18 pieces of carcass without heads and they weighted about 500 kg. The fishermen had cut each dolphin into 2-4 pieces. These pieces consist at least 6 dolphins (because 6 truncks with flipper joints). Two of these animals were Lagenodelphis hosei. Identification of the others must wait DNA analysis.
Lien-siang Chou
Professor
Department of Zoology
National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan, R. O. C.
Tel:886(Taiwan)-2-366-1331
Fax:886(Taiwan)-2-363-9902
e-mail:
chouls@ccms.ntu.edu.tw
Back to MENU