Efforts to conserve the endangered Formosan landlocked salmon have made progress, with artificially bred fish now spawning in their natural habitat in northeastern Taiwan, national park administrators said yesterday.
“Juvenile Formosan landlocked salmon that were released into the Sihjielan Stream (司界蘭溪) and the Luoyewei Stream (羅葉尾溪) on the border of Yilan and Taichung counties a few years ago have fared well and are now spawning,” said Chung Ming-shan (鍾銘山), deputy superintendent of the Shei-Pa National Park Headquarters.
“The discovery is encouraging, as it marks a step forward in our drive to preserve the precious fish, which harks back to the Ice Age,” Chung said. “It’s truly a miracle in the history of biology.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF SHEI-PA NATIONAL PARK ADMINISTRATION
Saying that the species traditionally inhabits slow-flowing streams with gently sloping beds at elevations of more than 1,500m, Chung added that the fish is now found mainly in the Cijiawan Stream (七家灣溪) and Gaoshan Stream (高山溪) in the upper stretches of the Dajia River (大甲溪), with the total population exceeding 2,300.
As the fish had been spotted in streams in the Yilan-Taichung border area prior to the 1970s, Chung said the Shei-Pa National Park’s conservation researchers have since 2006 regularly released young and juvenile fish into the Luoyewei and Sihjielan streams.
“Through monitoring, we have found that those fish have survived in the two streams and been able to breed naturally,” Chung said.
He said, however, that many fish perished or were washed away during several typhoons last year.
Late last year, park researchers released more than 100 young fish into the Sihjielan and Luoyewei streams, and they have been growing well, Chung said.
“Although Typhoon Morakot wreaked havoc in southern Taiwan’s mountainous regions in early August, the storm did not affect the Formosan landlocked salmon’s habitat in central Taiwan,” he said, adding that his office would continue to release young fish to reduce the possibility of the species going extinct while increasing the biodiversity of streams in the region.
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