Mentioning smoked salmon on crackers at the Shei-Pa National Park (雪霸國家公園) administrative center in Miaoli County will draw at best nervous laughter. For those in the administration's Department of Conservation, careers and Taiwan's credibility as a country dedicated to environmental protection rest on the continued survival of the Formosan landlocked salmon, one of the nation's most endangered species.
The stakes are high, and with the summer's destructive typhoons, researchers at the Miaoli administrative center and at Wuling Farm at the base of Snow Mountain, where the remaining population of the salmon exist, were tense late last month in anticipation of the twice-yearly census of the fish population.
There was genuine fear that floods from Typhoon Nari had drastically reduced the salmon population.
Released last week, the survey, which is conducted by snorkeling in a 5km stretch of Chichiawan Stream (
"Typhoons are one thing over which we have no control. All it would take would be a few big ones like Nari and the landlocked salmon would be history," said Liao Lin-yan (
HUMAN HAND
His team faces a daunting challenge in which success is by no measure a certainty. The landlocked salmon are at the brink of extinction and the fear among conservationists is that efforts to secure the fish's survival may have come too late.
As recently as the Japanese colonial occupation, the salmon's habitat included the Tachia River and its major tributaries -- Hohuan Stream, Nanhu Stream, Yusheng Stream, Wuling Stream and Skairan Stream. In the past 50 years, however, their range has been reduced to the highest portions of Chichiawan Stream in Shei-pa National Park where water temperatures remain around 12C -- the ideal spawning temperature for the species.
The severe range restriction can be traced entirely to human activity. Pesticide run-off has contaminated most of the watershed and trace metal concentrations in stretches of area streams often exceed international levels for healthy aquatic environments. In addition, a series of check dams on Chichiawan Stream has had the double effect of reducing water flow, thus raising water temperatures and restricting the movement back upstream for fish that are washed downstream by typhoon-triggered floods. Once caught downstream in warmer, more polluted waters, the fish's chances of survival are greatly reduced.
The Japanese colonial administration, which saw the dangers faced by the species, restricted all development within 300m of the banks of streams that supported the salmon. This policy sustained a healthy fish population, and elderly Aborigines in the area can recall eating the salmon as a staple of their diet.
When the KMT regime took over, economic development was pursued typically at the expense of preserving wildlife habitat, with the result that in a matter of decades, the fish went from being a daily food item for local residents to the top of the endangered species list in 1984.
TURNING THE TIDE
There are hopeful indications, however, that the tide may be turning in favor of the salmon.
The range of the fish now falls entirely within the boundaries of Shei-pa National Park and is protected under the Wildlife Conservation Law as well as the Cultural Assets Protection Act, which prohibit activity that would endanger or interfere with the salmon or its habitat.
RSS