The government is to establish a task force to address an explosion of crown-of-thorns starfish threatening corals around Dongsha Atoll National Park, the Ministry of the Interior said on Sunday.
In addition to support from the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ocean Affairs Council, the cross-agency team would also include experts from Academia Sinica, the Taiwanese Coral Reef Society and National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU), along with professional divers to reduce the starfish population near the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島), Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said.
The task force would be sent to the national park in 10 deployments to clear out the starfish, with each deployment lasting a week, Liu said.
Photo copied by Ge You-hao, Taipei Times
After an official call to recruit expert divers was sent out on July 10, the Marine National Park Headquarters received responses from 436 applicants in 11 days, the organization said.
The official roster released on July 30 showed that the headquarters recruited 102 divers as volunteers.
The task force would also include 39 experts from Academia Sinica’s Biodiversity Research Center, the NSYSU’s Dongsha Atoll Research Station and non-governmental organizations, the headquarters said.
The task force adopted as its mascot Charonia tritonis, a species of large sea snail commonly known as “Triton’s trumpet,” which is the natural enemy of the crown-of-thorns starfish, the organization said.
Adult crown-of-thorns starfish, which feed on coral polyps as part of the natural food chain, are not a threat to corals when the ecosystem is balanced, it said.
However, overconsumption of polyps by a high number of crown-of-thorns starfish could result in the collapse of the coral ecosystem, which Dongsha Atoll National Park is experiencing, likely due to a combination of factors including changes in climate, pollution and a decrease in the starfish’s natural predators, it said.
Based on the Marine National Park Headquarters’ monitoring of the starfish population in the past few years, and with the help of Academia Sinica, it confirmed in June that the overpopulation was so severe that 20 to 30 starfish could be spotted every 100m2 in the waters in the national park, it said.
Taiwan is not the only country dealing with an overpopulation of crown-of-thorns starfish, the Ministry of the Interior said.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Japan’s Okinawa, as well as nations in the South China Sea, have also been affected by the overpopulation of the starfish, it said.
While experts and academics attempt to pinpoint the main reason for the starfish’s rapid population growth, manual removal is the most effective way to control the population, it said.
The Dongsha Atoll National Park, in the northern part of the South China Sea, is about 400km from Taiwan proper.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
RSS