Much to the delight of local preservationists, efforts to establish a second natural breeding ground for the endangered Formosan landlocked salmon have met success, Shei-Pa National Park Administration said.
Liao Lin-yen (廖林彥), director of the park’s Wuling Formosan Landlocked Salmon Conservation Center, said that after it released 250 Formosan landlocked salmon bred in captivity into the Luoyewei Stream (羅葉尾溪) and Sijielan Stream (司界蘭溪) last June, 28 salmon had been spawned.
SPAWNING GROUNDS
“We have found eight spawning grounds along the Luoyewei Stream and four spawning grounds in the Sijielan Stream,” he said. “A total of 28 fish have so far been spawned.”
The discovery indicates that captive-bred rare salmon can naturally breed after being released into the wild, Liao said, adding that the center has spent about 17 years to achieve this goal.
Encouraged by the results, Liao said, the park administration is scheduled to release up to 1,000 salmon parr in both streams on May 22 in hopes of establishing them as a second natural habitat for the Formosan landlocked salmon — a holdover from the last Ice Age and considered one of Taiwan’s national treasures — within five years.
TRADITIONAL HABITAT
Work by the conservation center has also boosted the number of Formosan landlocked salmon in the Cijiawan Creek (七家灣溪) — its traditional habitat — from slightly more than 200 in 1995 to more than 4,000 now.
The conservation center has not released captive-bred salmon parr in the river since 2006 and has instead launched a “take young salmon home” program, Liao said.
Under the project, Liao said, the center set up a “species bank” for the Formosan landlocked salmon and began releasing salmon fry into streams where the species had been found in the past.
DIFFICULTIES
Initially, the program achieved little success, Liao said.
The center released 1,500 salmon parr into three streams near the Cijiawan Creek four years ago, but most of them were washed away during typhoons before they could spawn.
A field survey found that larger volumes of water brought by typhoons as a result of global warming were having a negative impact on the species’ breeding, Liao said.
“We then decided to release salmon parr into other branches of the creek that are linked to deeper ponds and have more stable water flow,” Liao said, adding that this new approach had paid off.
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