The Fisheries Administration will soon dispatch monitors to 15 vessels that will continue to operate in the Atlantic Ocean, fishery officials said yesterday.
The officials said the administration has recently started a training program and the first batch of 15 trainees will be responsible for monitoring the operations of the vessels and the registration of their catches.
The 15 were originally ocean science observers collecting information of ocean resources, the officials said. They are receiving training on fishery management and disciplinary regulations to facilitate their new tasks.
The Fisheries Administration is planning to train another 15 people, hoping to boost the number of observers stationed on the ships to at least 30 so that they could work on a rotational basis, the officials said.
The officials also said that they are now communicating with the port countries, via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on arranging the observers to board the Taiwanese vessels either in Las Palmas, Spain, or Cape Town, South Africa.
The first group of 15 observers are expected to board the ships between the end of this month and the end of next month, and they should be able to start work early next year.
The observers will monitor the operations of the vessels and check if they have registered their fishery catches according to regulations. They will report the catches daily to the Fisheries Administration, which will in turn report the information to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT).
Last month ICCAT cut Taiwan's total bigeye tuna fishing quota for next year because of overfishing by Taiwanese fishing vessels.
The decision was made on the last day of the ICCAT's 19th regular meeting held in Seville, Spain, after Japan proposed a quota cut citing overfishing by Taiwanese vessels.
Most bigeye tunas caught by Taiwanese boats are sold to Japan.
The amount exported to Japan in the past two years has exceeded the total yearly catch quota, which is what prompted the overfishing allegation.
Japan has also accused the government of failing to supervise operations of the tuna-fishing industry, saying mismanagement had led to overfishing.
As a result, 42 Taiwanese fishing vessels specializing in catching bigeye tuna in the Atlantic will not be able to operate next year and must return to Taiwan.
Only 15 vessels in the tuna fleet will be allowed to continue fishing in the Atlantic.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS