Hsu Yuan-tai, a professor in the Department of Horticulture at NTU, says that in the later years of the Japanese colonial empire, Japan collected orchids from throughout its holdings, including Taiwan. And he has also heard several stories of foreign scholars or business people coming to Taiwan to come away with a new species of bat or an unnamed insect.
台灣生物資源遭受著各國覬覦，台大園藝系教授徐源泰表示，日本終年在包括台灣的各個國家尋找蘭花，而國外生物學者、商人從台灣帶回新種蝙蝠、不知名昆蟲的事情更時有所聞。