Chienkuo University of Science and Technology students are showcasing videos featuring five fishing techniques used across Taiwan in the hope of preserving methods that are dying out.
The students traveled the nation to document the huanghuo (磺火) method used in New Taipei City’s Jinshan District (金山), the sanjiaohu (三腳虎) method used in Yilan County’s Nanfangao (南方澳) port, the ciangu (牽罟) method used in Yilan County’s Toucheng Township (頭城), the diaozeng (吊罾) method used in Tainan’s Sicao District (四草) and swordfish harpooning used in Taitung’s Chenggung Township (成功).
The huanghuo fishing method uses calcium carbide to fuel the flames, while the sanjiaohu uses lighting equipment, students said, adding that both methods use light to attract the fish before they are encircled with nets.
Photo: Chang Tsung-chiu, Taipei Times
The ciangu method aims to locate schools of fish and force them into an area where fishermen had already spread out fishing nets, they said.
The diaozeng method also involves the use of nets, where a net is attached to a bamboo boom jutting out from a boat, allowing the net to be lowered into the water, the students said.
The students recorded the activities to showcase the local fishing methods, the group’s instructor Tu Ya-wen (杜雅雯) said.
The students interviewed fishermen and recorded the interviews on video, Tu said, adding that they also made several items from the materials used in fishing.
The items include hemp-rope book bags that look like fishing nets, mobile-phone cases with colored fish pictures, postcards with quotes from fishing boat captains the students interviewed, name cards that look like sailor permits and stickers, the students said.
Yen Hui-ting (顏慧庭), one of the students, said they were afraid that the fishing boat captains, who are stereotyped as gruff people, would refuse their interview requests.
“However, the captains treated us like their own children,” Yen said, adding: “It was perhaps due to the time spent away from their own families.”
Yen said that she and her friends thought that fishing was only about casting nets and waiting, adding that thanks to the interviews they learned it was more than that, and the fishermen had to think to outsmart the fish they were trying to catch.
Lin Fang-ying (林芳瑩) and Wu Chia-hui (吳家慧), two other students in the group, said the interviews showed them how Taiwan’s fishery resources were drying up.
Tsai Po-kai (蔡博凱), the only male student in the group, said that with the gradual replacement of open-sea fishing with aquaculture industries and the oppression of fishermen by large companies, many of the fishing methods they have documented were in danger of dying out.
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