“Foreign poaching ring busted after ensnaring elderly centipede trappers”
I can picture Taiwan News headline already!
Now presented with an array of Scolopendra, I’m honestly not sure which type they are, but they’re regularly 20cm plus, yellow/orange legs and dark brown bodies.
In terms of the catching them as an alternative to killing them, this is a very inventive solution, and I thank you for your detailed beginnings of a business plan. I actually saw a guy on some sketchy buy/sell group offering to buy them alive for between $200-$300 a piece depending on size.
Over the years, I have observed A-Huang’s daily routine. It consists of smoking, occasionally tending his personal veg garden in the front carpark (which incidentally he won’t use any chemicals on), and in the summer drying the gourds from his veg plot. I don’t think that this line of work would appeal.
I will stay patient and fight the good fight as best I can.
Perhaps you misunderstood my intention. Just plant the seeds of ideas in his head. He does it all, not you. Don’t be involved, for obvious reasons already mentioned. It is a thing though, the exotics industry. A couple hundred a pop as a supplier (wholesale/supplier) is about right as they sell them as pets for 1000-2000 usually (as pets). For medicine they actually prefer smaller (10-15 is great), it’s dried and sold by the kg. he probably won’t bother for that tiny amount of cash as most tiawanese aren’t that hungry anymore. But catching and selling as pets is a very plausible compromise. Key point being, feeding him info and never touching either the animals nor the tools yourself to avoid any issues. This is already done often as is. Not that it’s right. But it’s better than mass poison and contamination of land, water and killing of untold amounts of other fauna. The trick is getting silly social with the old guy (slightly drunk is ideal if he isn’t violent/angry) and mentioning this. Never “you should”, but rather “I read people are looking for these as pets” then provide links/info that are legitimate. Shit, I’ll give the guy 400 a pop for any of the above species over 15cm just for principle to prove the point and try and get the ball moving in his head (only a couple haha, I’m not rich but I do need a couple new specimens).
If you are seeing 20+ cm, then they are for sure one of the above mentioned species. You don’t need to key them out, that list is probably good enough. The pet trade is famously unscientific. Especially with this group of animals. Edit. Meaning they buy them all
If you have pics, that would be great.
All this said, I must also bring out the point that centipedes are normally though to be almost totally carnivorous. So baits don’t work as well as he may think. What does happen is it will kill crickets, roaches and so on, centipedes with scavenge fresh kills and they will die via that route. Not so unlike how birds, dogs, cats etc die from eating a rodent poisoned from rat poison type of deal. Primary point, those baits are killing more vegetarian / decomposers than predatory carnivores.
Edit. Further thought, maybe those granules also have attractant for meat eaters? Seems unlikely given the purpose is to avoid eating plants. But it’s possible. I would still sell him a story of the bait being vegan and centipedes being carnivores.
Another case in which this “agrochemical abyss” has had tragic effects. This ended up killing three people in Taitung and putting others who had eaten the tubufos-laden abai (millet dumplings) into the hospital.
“That evening, several relatives and friends who came to mourn her death and ate the leftover dumplings and other items in Tseng’s kitchen later exhibited symptoms such as vomiting and convulsion”
The family was gathering in this Indigenous (I’m guessing Paiwan) community after the old woman died.
It appears that Uber Eats hasn’t made it to that mountain community in Taitung yet.
It was a big mistake however for them to not connect the dots between her death and the abai. The hospital staff in Taitung City suspected food poisoning but I guess were circumspect about declaring anything before the lab results came in.
Because you aren’t from there so you struggle.
Not all westerners have the same funeral traditions either, far from it.
I wouldn’t have touched the snails personally but they seem to be a delicacy there.
The medical care is poor obviously , nobody followed up after the first death.
I haven’t followed that. I wonder did she confuse the ingredients and just add directly to the millet or what. Would need to check concentrations.
Anyway it’s sad that these chemicals are allowed to be sprayed everywhere killing so many organisms indiscriminately.
Makes a lot of sense.
Never would have thought about that if making zongzi. Supposedly there was an open bottle of insecticide there in the kitchen as well.
