On July 5, the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) reported mass deaths of oysters at a farm in the Erkan (二崁) area of Penghu County’s Siyu Township (西嶼). The death rate of cultured oysters was as high as 60 percent, the report said.
From my years of research on oyster culture, the cause of the mass deaths is not climate change, water temperature or disease — as some academics and experts have suggested — but the importation of triploid oysters, also known as “3N oysters,” from China at the beginning of this year.
The death rate of cultured oysters in other areas of the county is as low as 10 percent. If the high death rate had been caused by weather conditions, water temperature or disease, it would have been a common phenomenon throughout the county and there would not have been a huge gap between the death rates in neighboring areas.
The oyster farm imported the 3N oysters from China early this year. As the water was cold at that time, the fast-growing Chinese oysters initially thrived.
However, the Chinese oysters did not survive Taiwan’s hot summer, an outcome I warned the oyster farmer of at the time.
Why can 3N oysters from China not survive the high temperatures in Taiwan?
The Chinese oysters are from the Pacific Ocean, while Taiwanese oysters are from Portugal. As a result, their resistance to heat varies greatly.
Pacific oysters live at higher latitudes, and are more suited to temperate zones. They are tolerant of low winter temperatures, but cannot tolerate high temperatures in subtropical zones.
Many business operators import oysters to Taiwan every year, and such products can be divided into two types: frozen, top-off oysters and live oysters shipped by air.
The latter are immediately delivered to restaurants and stay in fish tanks until they are sold.
However, most are from the Pacific and can only survive in fish tanks whose temperature do not exceed 16°C.
The 3N oysters should not be blamed for this, as the Pacific oysters simply cannot adapt to the conditions in Taiwan.
Some academics say that the deaths were caused by the extreme weather, warm water or even attacks from hairy triton sea snails.
If these were really the causes, oysters elsewhere in Penghu, or even Taiwan proper, should have died too.
However, this was clearly not the case.
Taiwan’s oyster farmers should not import Chinese oysters without regard for these differences.
China is still a cholera-affected area and the origin of infectious diseases. Importing Chinese aquatic products has the potential to do great harm to Taiwan’s aquaculture industry.
Moreover, the mass deaths of the Chinese oysters would have bred germs, which also pose a risk to local species.
Jiang Yuh-shiun is the chairman of Taiwan Oyster Progressive Biotechnology Corp.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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