TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Researchers report that a tree discovered in a national park in northern Taiwan is the tallest in East Asia, standing at a towering height of 79.1 meters (259.5 feet).
A team dubbed the "Tree Hunters," organized by the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Research Institute and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), are using airborne laser imaging, or lidar, technology to document "giant trees" that are taller than 65 m, according to UDN. In 2019, the team spotted a massive tree dubbed the “Taoshan Sacred Tree” (桃山神木), which is from the Taiwania cryptomerioides species.
(Forestry Research Institute photo)
In August 2020, the Tree Hunters, led by Wang Chi-kuei (王驥魁), a professor at NCKU’s Department of Geomatics, were dispatched to conduct a field survey and located the tree at an elevation of 2,000 m in the Shei-pa National Park, Hsinchu County. At the time, the tree measured at 79.1 m or about 22 stories, making it the tallest tree not only in Taiwan but all of East Asia.
This year, the team returned to the area to again measure the tree's height and capture photographs from top to bottom. Team members were joined by Australian photographer Steven Pearce in carrying 30 to 40 kilograms, or about NT$6 million worth of lidar equipment. Researchers believe the tree will surpass 80 m in a few years. For comparison, the Statue of Liberty is 93 m.
(Forestry Research Institute photo)
Rebecca Hsu (徐嘉君), an assistant researcher at the institute, said that it takes three to four hours to climb the tree. Hsu said that once the pulleys were in place, it takes about two minutes to raise the camera rig up to the top of the tree and it spends 12 minutes taking 450 photographs as it is lowered to the ground, with the process repeated 20 times.
Wang said that there are 941 giant trees in Taiwan that have reached 65 m and over in height. He said that there was another tree that was believed to be even taller at 82 m in height.
(Forestry Research Institute photo)
However, the top 20 m had dead branches and the environment was dangerous, and it was impossible to climb up. Therefore, Wang said that Taoshan Sacred Tree is officially the tallest, as it has been officially measured and fully photographed.
Based on lidar scans, the team believes that there are trees over 80 m in height upstream on the Da'an River. The team will need to wait until conditions are drier in January and February before they can begin exploring the area.
(Forestry Research Institute photo)
