Yuchi Township (魚池) fishers have appealed to the Nantou County Government for help in dealing with an invasive fish species in Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), where it has devastated the local ecosystem.
Fishers at Sun Moon Lake have been using electrofishing in an attempt to eliminate the giant snakehead fish — found in Africa and Southeast Asia — but they have struggled to keep up with the growing population of the species, which breeds during September and October, the county government said on Monday.
The county has contacted researchers at National Tsing Hua University, saying it hoped they could come up with a more ecologically friendly and efficient plan to tackle the invasive species, which has been feeding off the lake’s indigenous marine life.
Photo courtesy of the Nantou County Government
Many other invasive species have found their way into Sun Moon Lake in the past few years, including piranhas, gymnochanda (a species of Asiatic glassfish) and the red devil cichlid, it said, adding that the snakehead is especially destructive to the local ecosystem.
“To get rid of snakeheads and their eggs in an ecologically friendly way we are going to use giant mottled eels. They will eat the fish and eggs,” it said.
So far, the fishers have captured about 5,000 snakeheads through three electrofishing attempts, it said.
“We worked with the county and tracked down the areas around the lake where the snakehead fish amass, and found the main area to be around Syuan Guang Temple,” Nantou County Department of Agriculture Director Chen Jui-ching (陳瑞慶) said.
People planning to take part in the annual Sun Moon Lake swimming event on Sunday need not be worried about getting bitten by snakeheads, as the fish are afraid of people and would not come around the large group of swimmers, the county government said.
The county told a news conference on Friday last week that 1,998 teams comprising 21,828 people had signed up for this year’s event.
The participants include 195 foreign nationals living in Taiwan and 171 people with disabilities, it said.
When not swimming, participants will have to wear masks as part of pandemic response measures, it said.
Those failing to comply could be subject to fines of between NT$3,000 and NT$15,000, it said.
Additional reporting by Chang Hsieh-sheng
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS