Several days of low temperatures have caused damage to the aquaculture sector in southern Taiwan. The population of milk fish in Tainan County has been reduced by 30 percent, and the situation could lead to NT$23.6 million in financial losses, local officials said yesterday.
Last week, low temperatures of between 5?C and 6?C in the south killed off scores of milk fish in aquatic farms throughout the county. According to local authorities, as of yesterday the total area of affected fish farms has reached 715 hectares. In addition, 457 tonnes of dead fish had to be removed and treated immediately in a bid to avoid environmental pollution.
Accompanied by agricultural officials and Tainan County Councilor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲), Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) inspected a district of milk fish farms in Peimen Township and examined the dead fish floatingon the surface of the water.
According to one farmer, Tu Jen-kuei (
There are about 17,000 hectares of aquaculture farms in the county. In terms of milk fish, 5,164 hectares of fish farms produce about 10,764 tonnes of fish annually. Most milk-fish farms are located in coastal townships, such as Chiku, the lagoons of which are also wintering sites for endangered black-faced spoonbills.
Su and the other officials estimated that about 30 percent of the milk fish in the farms had died. This means about 3,000 tonnes of dead milk fish are awaiting removal and treatment.
"However, total financial losses have not exceeded NT$200 million, the threshold for receiving compensation from the central government. We will file a report soon to ask for a special relief fund to address the damage," Su said.
Agricultural officials said that the price for 600g of milk fish is about NT$40, and the recent cold fronts have put fish farmers in a quandary. Huang, who was elected to the legislature last month, said the Council of Agriculture (COA) had to offer relief funds for the farmers prior to the arrival of Lunar New Year early next month.
In addition, to avoid environmental pollution, Su said that the county also needs special assistance to chemically treat the abundant dead fish, which can hardly be used for any useful purpose.
Officials said yesterday that the removal of dead fish was especially crucial to prevent a botulism outbreak among the black-faced spoonbill population.
In December 2002, 73 black-faced spoonbills in Chiku died after being infected with the C. botulinum toxin. Experts said toxins in rotten fish contributed to the epidemic.
Meanwhile, a real-time water-quality monitoring system has been established in the lagoon in Chiku to transfer data to the local environmental bureau. Once the water quality changes, environmental officials will immediately notify conservation groups and volunteers to inspect the sites to check on the spoonbills' activities.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods