With researchers 3,000 meters up Yushan undertaking a study of the ecology of the Formosan Black Bear, bringing back the Formosan Sika--long extinct in the wild--at Ken-ting, and stocking the Tachia Stream with Taiwan Trout raised artificially, many local species on the brink of extinction are getting greater attention. Meanwhile, the butterflies and fireflies that once fluttered around us, the tadpoles and mosquito fish which occupied ponds and ditches, and the eagle searing through the air, have all become "rare animals" in our daily lives.

From the summer diary of fifth-grader Wang Hsiao-ming: July 5, 1971, clear and sunny.

Today I went to the stream behind the house with my little brother and sister to play. When we passed by the bamboo grove, my little sister started to run really fast, because yesterday we saw a poisonous snake there. We scooped up the mosquito fish and clams in the stream with our bare feet. Dragonflies came flying out of the grass in pairs, and stopped on the top of the water. My little brother was running around with flypaper catching the cicadas on the trees.

When I got home I ran over to look under the eaves, to see if any of the eggs in the swallow's nest on the beam had hatched yet. But my little brother was looking at the mango tree in the courtyard and yelling, "Hey! Some bird ate a big hole in this mango!" I thought for sure that it must be the work of that bulbul who often sits on the ends of the branches of our trees.

After eating dinner, my favorite thing to do was to watch the geckos catch moths. My little brother caught two tumble bugs on the screen door, and tied them down with some thread, so they did a flying dance in the air. All of a sudden, I don't know from where, a bat flew into the living room, and my sister screamed.

From the summer diary of fifth grader Li Hsiao-mei: July 5, 1991, clear and sunny.

Yesterday mommy bought us an animal encyclopedia, with lots of pictures. This is the first time I ever really got to see the faces of these animals, and my older brother kept count of how many are in the city zoo.

I like the sika best of all the animals. It makes me sad because mother said they have disappeared in the wild. Last year when they chose the official mascot for the Taipei athletic meet, I gave this animal my vote anyway.

My favorite television program, "Taiwan's Animal World," introduced the "Swinhoe's blue pheasant." It's a kind of bird that lives in primitive deciduous forests, and it has a really long tail. I asked mommy to take me to the suburbs during the vacation to see a blue pheasant, but she said she didn't know where any were, so it was just as well to stay home and look at animal pictures.

Right at the end of the show, a bunch of pheasants took off from the trees and flew into a valley. I was sitting there watching the screen with all my attention, when a cockroach flew out from behind the TV, and it startled me so much I screamed.

From Sika to Rats: "In twenty years, the sea can turn into a mulberry plantation." This proverb is usually used to describe the vicissitudes of human affairs, but when this becomes a fact of life in the natural world, the ones left bemoaning it are the animals.

If you look back at historical records and all kinds of biological evidence, you can discover the following:

In the Taiwan of the beginning of this century, people were surrounded by the Formosan Sika, the Chinese Otter, the Formosan Rock Monkey, and other large mammals. There were more than 100 different types of birds, more than 20 types of amphibians, more than 100 kinds of reptiles, and a large number of insects (the number is still not clear today).

By the 1950's, the sika had disappeared, and, except for rats and bats, almost all remaining mammals were confined deep in the densely forested mountains. But even then the animals still had "air supremacy," and you could lift your head and see eagles, pheasants, and all kinds of birds; insects like butterflies and fireflies, and amphibians like toads and lizards were active, accompanying postwar babies as they were born and went through childhood to become the generation which is today in the "prime of life."

And the next generation? Today's kids grow up with carefully nurtured and pampered pets which as often as not are down at the vet's getting an innoculation or off at the "hairdresser" for a trim. The only "wild animals" left are harmful ones like rats and cockroaches.

Where Eagles Fear to Tread: The game "The Eagle Catching the Chick" has been passed from generation to generation, but it wasn't just invented from nothing. The "eagle" is the term people use to refer to the "Formosan Black-Eared Kite," and it was often uttered by the older generation. According to a 1960 report by the American bird observer Hsieh Hsiao-tung, at that time the eagle was very common in Taiwan. In Sanchangli and Tachih, now part of the Taipei metropolitan area, and Wuku in Taipei County you could see eagles spreading their wings and swooping down from on high, even catching prey.

As for animals that only eat one type of food, that only live on one kind of tree, or whose mobility is low or who require a high degree of concealment, these are often the "first sacrifices" to the development of the environment. The Orchid Island Monarch Butterfly, which consigns its young only to "birthwort," or the guinea fowl, which likes to hide in the dense thickets on the edge of a field so that often people can only hear its squawk, are both examples.

Reduction of Species: The restructuring of nature undertaken by man invisibly is a kind of "unnatural selection" for animals. A small number of animals, which have a broad diet, can reproduce rapidly, and don't have any preferences about heat and humidity are able to "keep in step" with human development. For instance the Hartert's Chinese Bulbul, which naturally prefers open ground in deciduous forests, has taken over where man has opened up new land, replacing the animals which desire dark and damp places, becoming one of the few bird species to "take off." With mankind making way for it, you can even hear the call of the bulbul in trees on city streets.

Moves toward uniform planting on agricultural land have provided abundant feed for sparrows and certain kinds of insects. Just as the dragonfly, firefly, tadpoles, and a number of shallow water fish have been wiped out in droves beneath an assault of pesticides, a few types of insects which are harmful to agriculture--like moths--have built up their resistance, testifying to the old adage that, "a centipede dies hard."

Densely populated urban centers provide even tougher challenges for animals. Besides the cats and dogs roaming the streets, the eternal piles of garbage attract and become the survival laboratories for more daring animals. The wastemeisters--rodents--are going in precisely the opposite direction from other mammals; while others are declining in number, they are increasing daily, running rampant, contaminating food, and spreading disease. Similarly the pigeon, not exactly a connoisseur of fine dining, grows fat being fed by urbanites. In European cities, their excrement corrodes brick and stone buildings and centuries-old statues.

The smell of the Fu-teh-kang garbage dump is indeed repellent, but it also offers a beautiful sight, white egrets flocking in to hang out over the resources tossed away after human consumption. The openings in city air conditioners have been known to replace tree branches, with nests of sparrows or bulbuls. Perpendicular skyscrapers provide a resting environment not all that different from sheer cliffs. There are stories from overseas of kites landing on the top of a building and gliding down along its face. But these scenes which occasionally startle and delight the urbanite are, after all, only very rare exceptions.

Nearer Is Better: Cities are, in the end, places made by people for themselves, and are really too different from the natural environment, and the number of animals which can coexist with mankind is extremely limited. Ants, pigeons, rats, and cockroaches are some of the important urban migrants, and are a universal result of urbanization.

Thus today various nations are rushing to create national parks and preserves, with one of the goals being to preserve a pristine environment for animals in the wild. Recently, studies of "urban animal life" have appeared, with the purpose being to enable other life forms to return to the human environment.

"For a person living in the concrete jungle, a Muntjac on the top of Yushan is not nearly as mean ingful as a bulbul that you can see everyday," repeatedly stresses Lin Yao-sung, director of the Department of Zoology at NTU. There should be undomesticated animals in the living environments of people; only then can we remind people that man lives in close interdependence with nature.

Lin Jun-yi of Tunghai University adds that because in the process of growing up today's young people have no contact with nature, have never really felt nature, and have not learned from nature, they don't understand how moving life is. "To touch a tree leaf every day, to see a butterfly, to grow up with nature--that's the secret to building a healthy character," he says. As for today's kids who answer "7-Eleven" to the question "where does milk come from?" or wonder "how is it they have long hair?!" when they see a genuine chicken, Lin--who feels that concern for nature is really concern for humanity--is distraught.

But given the limits of man-made environments, how can the overall number and number of species of animals be increased? Protection and management of green space in urban areas, and retention of as yet undeveloped natural settings in the suburbs, have become extraordinarily important.

Frog Tunnels: For examples, in public recreation areas, land could be reserved for large ponds or lakes to serve as "ports in a storm" for migratory birds like ducks and geese. In Europe, the US, and Japan, it is common for people to build bird feeders in their yards or on rooftops; there are feeding stations resembling bats' nests; in London, England there is a man-made passage beneath the road used as a "frog tunnel," so that they are not flattened by automobiles as they try to cross the road. Drivers going by there will see a sign warning: "Beware of the Frogs."

A survey of the bird population by the Wild Bird Society of R.O.C. in 1974 showed only 21 eagles in the Taipei area, and the number declined thereafter. The Taipei eagle population has racked up nothing but zeros since 1981.

The Taiwan Rumble Fish, whose body is so colorful that it is often mistakenly assumed to be a tropical fish from abroad (also known as the "Three Spotted" fish), was originally widespread in ditches and drains throughout Taiwan. Tseng Ching-hsien, a doctoral candidate in Zoology at National Taiwan University (NTU) who specializes in the study of fish, recalls that "eight or nine years ago, before the university dormitories were built on Wenchow Street, we often went down there to catch Three Spotted fish." Today, researchers scour the ponds, drains, ditches, and rice paddy fields in the suburbs but can't find a trace of the this type of fish.

Thirty or forty years ago, when the water in streams and irrigation ditches was clean, you could still see otter catching fish. You could even spot Taipei Red Frogs, which were spread across north Taiwan walking the streets in Taipei. Both of these animals are facing extinction today.

Lights Out for the Firefly: "A lot of the creatures we could see everywhere when we were young are gone, and for those that remain, the numbers have shrunk," affirms 40-year-old Chao Jung-tai, director of the Department of Forestry Preservation at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute. Hunting and trapping, excessive use of pesticides, and water pollution are all reasons for the decline of wild animals, but the main reason according to biologists and zoologists is large-scale development by the human race.

There are examples everywhere. In the summer of 1977, Yang Ping-shih, chairman of the Department of Plant Pathology and Entomology at NTU and the Butterfly Watcher's Association could see 20 or 30 species of butterflies in a single day on Wufeng Mountain in Hsintien. Three years later, the vegetation had been cleared and the mountain levelled, and highrises and houses had taken over. The immature butterflies had no plants on which to feed, and the butterflies consequently disappeared.

Urban streetlights have been the curse of fireflies. Because it is still bright at night, they cannot find partners in the light in order to produce offspring.

Highest Biological Diversity: Biologists prefer to use altitude to explain the changing ecology of animals in the wild. The areas, from sea level to 500 feet are the places in Taiwan with the most profuse plant life, the most diverse ecologies, and the warmest temperatures, and thus the places which can support the most varieties and largest numbers of animals. "In biology this is referred to as an area with the highest 'degree of biological diversity,'" says Liu Yi-hsin, a research fellow at the Department of Reforestation of the Forestry Research Institute. However, these also happen to be the areas most suitable to human habitation, so inevitably they have become the most developed, urbanized, and man-ipulated.

Not long ago, a song that was popular in Taipei had lyrics that went: "Past Chunghsiao East Rd. there used to be a graveyard." You really can't even mention the scale of today's cities with those of the past in the same breath. Taking Taipei for example, forty years ago, besides a few bustling areas like Wanhwa, most everything else was rice paddies. Today nearly 80% of Taiwan's population lives in urban areas, with one third of the population in the three cities of Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung alone.

Cities expand outward, and primitive deciduous forests are cut away to make agricultural land; agricultural land turned into construction land, and the mountain slopes are opened up for villas, recreation and amusement parks, and golf courses; and then you add on massive highway construction, factories moving into the countryside . . . . "Today the animals have even been frightened away from rural villages," says Li Kang, a resident of rural Tainan County.

Nevertheless, every living thing has a different capability to adapt to the environment, and takes a different path on the road to survival or extinction. The clearest example is that, while many species native to Taiwan have begun the path to ex tinction, some imported species, like the Tilapia or the Ampullarius canaliculatus having been brought here unwittingly, have spread in the search for food and survival. (See the article on foreign species in Taiwan.)

Survival of the fittest. And who are the best "adapters" under the powerful blows of mankind?

Large Mammals Suffer First: "The animals that reproduce in low numbers and require a lot of space are the first ones that can't stand up to it," says Li Ling-ling, an associate professor of Zoology at NTU. The bigger mammals, at the end of the food chain, like the big cats--the clouded leopard or the Chinese tiger cat--are the first wave to be hit.

Lin Chun-yi, a professor of biology at Tunghai University, has compiled a chart of the altitudes of various mammals in Taiwan over the last forty years. He discovered that the areas in which they stay have increased about 1000 meters. For example, the Formosan sambar, which was described as "ubiquitous" in the History of Koxinga's Exploration of Taiwan, can only be occasionally glimpsed in deep forests above 2000 meters.

The ancients said, "Take pity on the moth, and do not light the lantern." The light attracts insects far from the places they stay, and causes them to spawn in places without food; a number of species of large moths in Taiwan have disappeared in this way. Students and professors of the Department of Forestry at NTU discovered in experiments at Hsitou that if the lights are simply changed from white to a dusky yellow then there is a sharp decrease in the number of insects found dead within 20 meters of the lamps the next day. The Hsitou Forest Recreational Area has already begun the work of replacing its white path lights.

Recently, domestic ecology scholars have begun extending the theory of an "island ecology" from biology, and are pointing out ways to increase the number and types of animals in a man-made environment.

The Island Ecology Theory: It is suggested in "island theory" that if an island had once been connected to a continental land mass or is not far from such a land mass, then migration of animals back and forth should be relatively easy, so that the number of animal species will be more abundant. Moreover, the larger an island, the longer the food chain it can contain, and the more visible will be the facets of life.

By the same logic, the scattered parks and gardens in cities are like islands in the sea. If the area of green space is adequately large, it can sustain and contain a large number of animals. Or, if a sufficient "land bridge" (like a series of trees that animals can cross to get from one place to another) can be maintained between "island" and "island" or between green space and green space, then there will be a linkage between green spaces, which is equivalent to expanding the environment in which animals can reside, which in turn is helpful to raising the number of both animals and species.

Of course, cities have their limits, and one can never hope to see bears which require tens of hectares of land or pheasants or Chinese Muntjac which only live at high altitudes. "Nevertheless, a well-designed park or riverbank preserve can sustain many types of animals," states Professor Wang Ying of the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) Department of Biology.

In 1984, the ROC Wild Bird Association revealed in one survey that in only the Botanical Garden, more than 50 types of birds appeared in a single year. Although many of them were migratory birds, it was an amazing thing amidst all the bustle and dust. Because the purpose of the garden is to display all kinds of plant life, and it has been operated for almost 100 years, the trees are tall and vigorous, the floor beneath the trees is damp and dark, and people are prohibited from walking in certain areas. Added to all this, there is a rippling pond. This is the equivalent to manufacturing an optimal environment for living things.

"Botanical gardens have already become ecological systems capable of undertaking energy and nutrition cycles," observes Chao Jung-tai, whose office is on the edge of the Botanical Garden. The number of squirrels peaks at 20, and the Forestry Research Institute can even conduct "wildlife surveys" here--tracking and recording the squirrels with wireless radio to understand their behavior.

How Many Frogs in Kung-Kuan?: The Amphibian Resources Survey of NTNU further reveals that there are more than 10 types of frogs within a four-kilometer diameter circle with its center at Kung-Kuan. Yang Yi-ru, who studies frogs, lists the amphibians to be found on the NTU campus like precious family heirlooms: "On the experimental agricultural land we have the rice frog, at Moon-Drunken Lake we have the speckled toad." In the end having a few small animals is not all that exacting on the environment, you just need a small pond, and a few trees to keep them happy--that's why you can still hear frogs croaking in the suburb.

Although the Tamsui River which threads through Taipei, is not very clean, from Chuwei at the mouth of the river and Kuantu to the area around the Chunghsing Bridge and the Huachung Bridge, there are several important locations where migratory birds have to stop and rest. Every winter you can still see tens of thousands of geese and ducks on the river.

The extent of development on the edge of a city is never as great as in the city proper, and it is even easier to create space for animals to exist in. Five years ago, when the Mucha Zoo moved to its new home, they set aside land of more than ten hectares in the park to plant the types of trees butterflies need, such as orange trees beloved by the one ubiquitous Monarch Butterfly. Today the zoo is filled with butterflies, so that "often people go into the butterfly exhibit but can't see all that many butterfiles, but as soon as they go out the door, and they see the flourishing condition of the butterflies, they know they haven't wasted a trip," relates Chen Chien-chih, head of the Expansion Committee of the zoo.

Unable to Bridge the Gap?: There are still many places that need work. The ecology has always been at a disadvantage in competition with development, all the more so in a city which measures inches of land in ounces of gold. In the Kuantu wetlands area, already designated as a natural preserve, the Taipei City government had originally planned to buy the land inside the dikes and had mapped it out as the "Kuantu Nature Park," but because land prices lurched upward, they have not been able to finalize the plan; the 55 hectares of wetlands outside the dikes are already wasteland, a place where people dump their garbage. A survey of the bird population there in 1983 had 139 types; last year the number had dropped sharply to 47 kinds.

Also, all Taipei city parks have manmade structures in them, and green space is very sparse, and they have limited impact in attracting animals. Besides Jen-ai Rd. and Tun-hwa S. Rd., the safety islands on most roads are like isolated little desert islands; a lot of the trees on sidewalks are lined up like streetlights, and the distance between them is too great, so they cannot have the effect of being a "land bridge" between green spaces in the city.

Nature Textbook or Fairy Tale?: Once Tseng Ching-hsien took a group of children from Taipei City and a group of children from Yangming Mountain up to the Yamging Mountain National Park. When he asked them why there is no grass atop of Tatun Mountain, the children who lived on the mountain, drawing from their own experiences, used their imaginations to continually come up with opinions; the camera-carrying kids from the city were just running around snapping photos and recording sound. "If they don't have this kind of life experience, how are they going to come up with any answers?" says Chen Chien-chih of the zoo.

When we were children, there were many animals by our sides, but because we lacked relevant nature textbooks, we couldn't understand them more deeply; the first nature magazine about Taiwan only appeared in 1971. Today research about local animals is increasingly constantly, and related books and periodicals have appeared one after another. But there is already very little "wildlife" in our lives. Will the nature textbooks of this generation become the unreachable "fairy tales" of the next?

[Picture Caption]

The swallow often makes its nest in eaves or a beam, and is one of the few animals you can see in the city. (photo by Kuo Chih-yung)

Animals are sharply declining in rural areas as well; these kids worked at it a long time and only scooped up several clams. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

The sparrow is quite at ease in a man-made environment, a pioneer among birds. (photo by Kuo Chih-yung)

The trees along Jen-ai Rd. have attracted some bulbuls. (photo by Kuo Chih-yung)

The lively sparrow uses buildings for shelter from the wind. (photo by Arthur Cheng)

(photo by Kuo Chih-yung)

(photo by Chen Yang-wen)

(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)

(photo by Chen Chien-chih)

(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)

(photo by Vincent Chang)

Do these look familiar? Frogs, butterflies, toads, praying mantises, fireflies . . . . The wildlife which accompanied the post-war babies in growing up has been displaced from our daily living environment today, replaced by animals which can adapt to urbanization.

(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)

(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)

(Sinorama file photo)

(photo by Kuo Chih-yung)

The number of animals which can adapt to the city is limited, so people will have to content themselves with caged animals. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

Mammals are the first victims of man made development. The photo shows the Formosan Rock Monkey, already an endangered species. (photo by Arthur Cheng)

A lot of animals sharply declined in numbers because they had something desirable about them. The photo shows the Council on Agricultural Planning and Development destroying illegally smuggled ivory. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

In order to avoid damage to structures by bird excrement, Yale University has attached "bird needles" to statues. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

The larger the area of green space in a city, or the more green spaces can be linked together, the more animals they can contain. (photo by Vincent Chang)

A group of ducks flocks beneath the Chunghsing Bridge. The Taipei city government has already designated this area a migratory bird preserve. (photo by Kuo Chih-yung)

Preserving the natural environment in the suburbs is one way to keep animals around us. The photo shows a group of bird-lovers "catching" a goose with a telescope at the mouth of the Tamsui River. (photo by Arthur Cheng)

Man's unwanted waste has become a resource for birds. The photo show the Fu-teh- kang dump attracting some egrets. (photo by Vincent Chang)

Animals are sharply declining in rural areas as well; these kids worked at it a long time and only scooped up several clams. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）

The sparrow is quite at ease in a man-made environment, a pioneer among birds. （photo by Kuo Chih-yung）

The trees along Jen-ai Rd. have attracted some bulbuls. （photo by Kuo Chih-yung）

The lively sparrow uses buildings for shelter from the wind. （photo by Arthur Cheng）

Do these look familiar? Frogs, butterflies, toads, praying mantises, fireflies . . . . The wildlife which accompanied the post-war babies in growing up has been displaced from our daily living environment today, replaced by animals which can adapt to urbanization.(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)(photo by Vincent Chang)(photo by Chen Yang-wen)(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)(photo by Kuo Chih-yung)(photo by Chen Chien-chih)(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)(photo by Wang Chia-hsiung)(Sinorama file photo)(photo by Kuo Chih-yung)

Mammals are the first victims of man made development. The photo shows the Formosan Rock Monkey, already an endangered species. （photo by Arthur Cheng）

The number of animals which can adapt to the city is limited, so people will have to content themselves with caged animals. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）

A lot of animals sharply declined in numbers because they had something desirable about them. The photo shows the Council on Agricultural Planning and Development destroying illegally smuggled ivory. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）

In order to avoid damage to structures by bird excrement, Yale University has attached "bird needles" to statues. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）

The larger the area of green space in a city, or the more green spaces can be linked together, the more animals they can contain. （photo by Vincent Chang）

A group of ducks flocks beneath the Chunghsing Bridge. The Taipei city government has already designated this area a migratory bird preserve. （photo by Kuo Chih-yung）

Preserving the natural environment in the suburbs is one way to keep animals around us. The photo shows a group of bird-lovers "catching" a goose with a telescope at the mouth of the Tamsui River. （photo by Arthur Cheng）

Man's unwanted waste has become a resource for birds. The photo show the Fu-teh- kang dump attracting some egrets. （photo by Vincent Chang）