王吉娜實習日誌14: 針對野豬的套索陷阱

 針對野豬的套索陷阱

    今天我們開會討論了實習項目，我也就自己的構想聽取了一些回饋意見。我原本打算以台灣的二噁英（戴奧辛）問題為主題開展項目，但因選題範圍過大，需要進一步縮小切入點。接下來幾天，我將著手調查台灣當前有關二噁英的問題。

    當天剩下的時間，我在新北市議會旁聽了關於如何應對野豬農業危害的討論，重點探討了替代捕獸夾的各種方案。會議討論了使用電圍欄及其他手段，同時也多次提及了原住民群體。我了解到，新北市的農業多以小規模、專業化的「興趣型」農場為主；這類農場面臨的動物侵害各不相同，因此需要採取針對性的防治措施。日本的情況與台灣類似，農業從業人員同樣面臨老化問題，且日本已有許多提供防治服務的民營企業。

    會中討論了電圍欄的使用問題：雖然市面上大多數電圍欄是為防範獼猴設計的，但針對野豬的電圍欄則採用了更有效的特殊設計。不過，申請電圍欄補貼需滿足諸多條件，例如土地必須為私有且達到一定的面積要求等。然而，最大的障礙之一在於，許多農民因擔心觸電風險或覺得申請程序過於繁瑣，往往選擇放棄申請。

Snare Traps on Wild Boars

    Today we had a meeting about our internship projects, and I got some feedback on my idea. I wanted to do my project on dioxins in Taiwan, but my idea was too broad and I needed to narrow down my focus. I’m going to start looking at current issues in Taiwan concerning dioxins, so I’m going to spend the next few days doing that.

    The rest of the day was at the New Taipei City Council, where they discussed using alternatives to bear traps to control agricultural damage from wild boars. They discussed things like using electric fences and other means, but the indigenous people came up a lot in the discussion. I learned today that most agriculture in New Taipei City is mostly smaller, specialized “hobby” farms which might be subject to different types of damages from different animals, requiring different types of prevention. Japan is similar to Taiwan in that they have an aging agricultural sector, and there are a lot of privatized prevention companies in Japan. 

    They discussed the use of electric fences, but most are designed to keep out macaques, and the ones for wild boars have a specific design that is more effective. But there are a lot of eligibility requirements needed to get electric fences subsidized, such as the land needs to be privately owned and minimum acreage requirements, etc. But one of the biggest problems is that most farmers don’t apply either because they are afraid of electrocution or the application process is too complicated.