Fisherman Chang Wen-tien (張文田) on Thursday caught a 6kg albino bighead carp near the Shihmen Reservoir in Taoyuan.
Chang attributed the catch to a large earthquake on the same day, saying: “It must have been scared out of hiding.”
Bighead carp are often seen in the reservoir, with some growing to immense sizes, Chang said.
Photo: Hsu Cho-hsun, Taipei Times
However, they are usually black or multi-hued, he said.
The carp he caught was not particularly large, but its color was spectacular, he said.
It was probably startled out of hiding by the quake and swam headlong into his stationary trap, he said.
A magnitude 6 earthquake struck northeastern Taiwan at 5:28am that morning, with its epicenter 36.5km southeast of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 22.5km, Central Weather Bureau data showed.
In Taoyuan, the quake’s intensity registered level 4, bureau data showed.
“The older generation said that it was auspicious to catch a rare fish,” Chang said.
Its golden coloring was because of albinism, he said, citing experts he consulted.
It was the first time in his three decades of fishing in the area that he has seen a carp with such coloring, he said.
Local fishers and others took photographs with the carp, prompting Chang to say he had became a one-day celebrity.
He was still elated over the experience, he said.
The carp had multiple injuries and would only survive for two or three days in captivity, so Chang took it home, where it made an excellent meal, he said.
Carp are delicious deep-fried or braised, he said, adding that there are great carp meals at most Shihmen area freshwater fish restaurants.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,