A species of octopus native to the waters north of Penghu County is on the brink of extinction, county officials said yesterday.
The octopus normally lives off the coast of Yuanbei Village (員貝) and near Jibei Village (吉貝) between the months of February and May, but over the past few years it has rarely been seen, Yuanbei Warden Chen Tien-jui (陳天瑞) said.
Chen believes the octopus’ declining population is due to changes in the ecosystem.
Photo courtesy of the Agriculture and Fisheries Bureau of Penghu County Government
Normally the octopus lays its eggs in the intertidal zone in the northern part of the county between the Lantern Festival and Tomb Sweeping Day.
Aside from Yuanbei and Jibei, the octopus was normally found near Citou Wharf (岐頭碼頭) and Jhongtun Village (中屯) in the county’s Baisha Township (白沙), as well as in Magong City’s Chongguang Borough (重光), Chen said.
The intertidal zone near Yuanbei has been largely filled with sand and stones, making the area suitable for some species while others have been eliminated, he said, adding that mantis shrimp and eels have also begun to disappear from the area.
The main reason is that the caverns and boulders that the marine animals would use to hide in have been buried, he said, adding that octopus species that like shallow waters are also losing places to nest in.
Hsieh Yung-liang (謝永亮), who collects satellite photographs of the county, said that the changes to the coastline over the past seven years are strikingly evident.
A photograph from 2011 shows blue water around the coastline, while one of the same coast from 2017 shows a coastline that is white from the shells, sand and gravel that have raised the seafloor, he said.
Another effect of a rising seafloor is a loss of coral, Hsieh said, adding that aside from the coral itself, the marine life it houses is being pushed out.
If the situation is not addressed soon, some indigenous marine life, including the small octopus native to the county, is likely to become extinct within 10 years, he said.
Merely prohibiting the fishing of the octopus would not save it from extinction, he added.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift