Aboriginal Hunter in Intensive Care Despite Flu Vaccination

Photo:台灣醒報
Tama Talum (Chinese name: Wang Guanglu 王光祿), has been admitted to the intensive care unit at Taitung Mackay Memorial Hospital after suffering flu symptoms and breathing difficulties.

Health bureau officials say the symptoms are not related to a flu vaccine shot he received a few days ago.

Tama Talum is well known among defenders of aboriginal hunting rights. In 2015, the 56 year-old member of the Bunun aboriginal tribe was charged with possession of an illegal firearm, and poaching offenses after killing a Formosan serow and a Reeve’s muntjac.

In his defense, Tama Talum argued that his 92 year-old mother had told him she had become sick of eating greasy pork dishes, and craved the mountain meat she had been accustomed to in her youth.

Tama Talum’s legal defense team argued that hunting was an integral part of his tribe’s culture, and that he was being unfairly persecuted for carrying out a “filial act”.

The court handed down a 3 year six month prison sentence and an NT70,000 fine.

Tama Talum was due to start serving his prison sentence on December 15, 2015, but remained at home with his elderly mother. Local police did not turn up to take him to prison and deferred to higher authorities. Later that day, Prosecutor-General Yen Da-ho filed an extraordinary appeal to the Supreme Court.

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