TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei Zoo hosted the 64th annual meeting of the Japan Herpetological Society, which drew more than 200 Japanese educators and students from Sunday to Monday to study the plight of amphibians and reptiles in an era of climate change.
A zoo statement said the event united the Taiwanese and Japanese herpetological community, with over 100 local attendees representing academia, government agencies, and NGOs. The event marked a longstanding research collaboration between the two countries.
The event began with a presentation by Matt Goetz, a herpetologist from the Durrell Wildlife Trust, Jersey Zoo in the UK. He shared the challenge to conserve the rarest and most threatened tortoise in the world, the Madagascar ploughshare tortoise.
The wild numbers of this tortoise were estimated to be around 800 in 2014. However, the illegal wildlife trade eliminated all ploughshare tortoises from the wild by 2018.
Goetz says his wildlife center still maintains members of this species in a breeding and captive husbandry facility. He discussed the role and responsibility of zoos in the conservation of endangered species.
Goetz said husbandry requirements are dependent upon the zoo's location, with a focus on replicating climate, seasonality, lighting, heating, and food required by the species. Special considerations should include high-intensity daylight, appropriate ultraviolet radiation, and a basking area.
The next speaker was Professor Nishikawa Kanto of Kyoto University. He is best known for collaborating with Taiwanese experts in 2019 on an extensive survey of Taiwanese salamanders.
Taiwan has five species of salamanders, all of which live in high-altitude mountains and have been referred to as “living fossils,” belonging to the genus Hynobius. Taiwanese salamanders are reclusive and spawn in underground waters, making their ecology and behavior difficult to survey, as Nishikawa's research found that Hynobius formosanus and Hynobius sonani were previously misidentified.
The third speaker, Ota Hidetoshi, a professor at the University of Hyogo, shared a brief history of his herpetology research in Taiwan.
Ota said he learned English by studying a dictionary, and perfected his English skills by working as a tour guide for foreign visitors. Ota was grateful to Taiwanese who offered him rides to his next research destination.
