Penghu recently released 100,000 adult and 200,000 juvenile areola babylon sea snails into the waters off its coast in an effort to revive the local marine ecology, which was badly damaged by an unusually cold spell early this year.
The release was conducted at the end of last month, Huang Ting-shi, an assistant researcher at the Penghu Marine Biology Research Center, said yesterday.
Penghu suffered its worst fishery disaster in a century in February, when a two-week cold snap killed masses of fish and coral.
The cold, which scientists attributed to a cold water current from snow melting in China, caused fishery losses of NT$350 million (US$11 million) for the fishing-dependent county, a report in March by the county government said.
Fish farmers around the county lost 1,506 tonnes of fish, mostly valuable cobia and grouper, the report said.
Asked why shellfish rather than fish were chosen for the repopulation move, Huang said that the mollusks, which feed on decaying flesh, not only serve as cleaners but also as bait to attract other marine creatures.
The adult shellfish are expected to spawn between March and September next year, and the young, which feed on organic detritus, will attract crabs and octopus, which in turn will attract bigger fish, Huang said.
This way, the damaged marine food chain will gradually be restored to a balanced state, he said.
Moreover, Penghu has the country’s largest area of tidal flats perfect for creatures like shellfish and crabs, Huang said.
The areola babylon snails live on sandy and muddy sea bottoms in tropical and temperate zones at depths of 8m to 20m. In Taiwan, they are distributed along the southwest coast and are a major fishery resource.
Taiwan has suffered a drop in numbers of the shellfish in recent years and has to import from other countries. The retail price can reach as high as NT$450 per kilo, the Penghu County Government said in a press release.
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