Sat, Apr 09, 2016 page3

• Students document local fishing techniques

  WARM WELCOME: The students said they were afraid that the fishing boat captains would turn down their interview requests, but they treated them like their own children

  • By Chang Tsung-chiu and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Chienkuo University of Science and Technology students are showcasing videos featuring five fishing techniques used across Taiwan in the hope of preserving methods that are dying out.

  The students traveled the nation to document the huanghuo (磺火) method used in New Taipei City’s Jinshan District (金山), the sanjiaohu (三腳虎) method used in Yilan County’s Nanfangao (南方澳) port, the ciangu (牽罟) method used in Yilan County’s Toucheng Township (頭城), the diaozeng (吊罾) method used in Tainan’s Sicao District (四草) and swordfish harpooning used in Taitung’s Chenggung Township (成功).

  The huanghuo fishing method uses calcium carbide to fuel the flames, while the sanjiaohu uses lighting equipment, students said, adding that both methods use light to attract the fish before they are encircled with nets.

  

  Students from Chienkuo University of Science and Technology in Changhua yesterday display creative designs based on their interviews with fishermen.

  Photo: Chang Tsung-chiu, Taipei Times

  The ciangu method aims to locate schools of fish and force them into an area where fishermen had already spread out fishing nets, they said.

  The diaozeng method also involves the use of nets, where a net is attached to a bamboo boom jutting out from a boat, allowing the net to be lowered into the water, the students said.

  The students recorded the activities to showcase the local fishing methods, the group’s instructor Tu Ya-wen (杜雅雯) said.

  The students interviewed fishermen and recorded the interviews on video, Tu said, adding that they also made several items from the materials used in fishing.

  The items include hemp-rope book bags that look like fishing nets, mobile-phone cases with colored fish pictures, postcards with quotes from fishing boat captains the students interviewed, name cards that look like sailor permits and stickers, the students said.

  Yen Hui-ting (顏慧庭), one of the students, said they were afraid that the fishing boat captains, who are stereotyped as gruff people, would refuse their interview requests.

  “However, the captains treated us like their own children,” Yen said, adding: “It was perhaps due to the time spent away from their own families.”

  Yen said that she and her friends thought that fishing was only about casting nets and waiting, adding that thanks to the interviews they learned it was more than that, and the fishermen had to think to outsmart the fish they were trying to catch.

  Lin Fang-ying (林芳瑩) and Wu Chia-hui (吳家慧), two other students in the group, said the interviews showed them how Taiwan’s fishery resources were drying up.

  Tsai Po-kai (蔡博凱), the only male student in the group, said that with the gradual replacement of open-sea fishing with aquaculture industries and the oppression of fishermen by large companies, many of the fishing methods they have documented were in danger of dying out.
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