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Groups make bid to save 'Matsu fish'

Ecology and environmental conservation organizations yesterday urged the government to draw up measures within two weeks on ways to save the nation's Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphins.

The dolphins are also known as "Matsu fish" (媽祖魚) because they generally appear along the west coast around the March birthday of the sea goddess. Easily recognizable by their light pink color, they like to gather close to the seashores and bayous in the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean.

Staging a skit in front of the Executive Yuan yesterday, members of the Matsu Fish Protection Alliance urged the government to speed up efforts to save the humpbacked dolphins, of which there are fewer than 200 left near Taiwan, the group said.

Their habitat is gradually being destroyed by several government-approved development projects along the west coast, Ecology Academy General Secretary Chen Bing-heng (陳秉亨) said yesterday.

Chen said conservation experts from countries such as Canada, Japan and the US passed a resolution in an international conservation seminar in Taiwan in September establishing a consultancy group that offers assistance on Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphins conservation.

Chen said that Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the Humane Society, announced in Washington on Tuesday the establishment of the Taiwan Sousa Working Group to support the cause.

Peter Ross, a marine mammal toxicologist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Institute of Ocean Sciences, is the chairman of the group's advisory team, Chen said.

Also See: CPC, Formosa ordered to study impact on dolphins
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