The coral reefs around Kenting National Park could delay spawning for another month this year, an official from the Taiwanese Coral Reef Society said.
Tsai Yung-chun (蔡永春) said he dived in the area on Sunday night to observe the spawning of the coral and found that only a few had spawned.
The spawning season of the park’s coral has been delayed for the third consecutive year because of weather changes, Tsai said.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hui, Taipei Times
Tsai’s records for the past two decades showed the coral reefs in the park generally spawn between March 20 and March 24 on the lunar calendar (April 22 to April 26 this year).
This year, the coral began to spawn eggs on April 23 and Tsai had expected to see large amount of eggs laid on Sunday night, but in the end only three kinds of coral had spawned a small amount of eggs.
“Including the coral that had small amount of spawning Sunday night, only five kinds of coral have spawned so far,” he said.
There are more than 400 kinds of coral in the park’s waters and Tsai had previously recorded a large amount of egg laying, with more than 30 varieties of corals spawning simultaneously.
Tsai said that if the corals did not spawn around March 20 on the lunar calendar, they would do so one month later.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS