The Fisheries Agency yesterday denied accusations by environmental group Greenpeace that four Taiwanese-flagged vessels illegally caught sharks last year in a restricted area of the northern Pacific Ocean.
Fisheries Agency Deputy Director Lin Ting-jung (林頂榮) said that Greenpeace had “misunderstood” the situation, as the area is a “voluntary closed zone” designated for specific vessels, suggesting that it is not subject to formal legal restrictions.
The area has been accessible since 2021 for trial fishing by approved vessels to collect scientific data, in line with Taiwan’s evolving shark conservation measures in the western and central Pacific, the agency said in a statement.
Photo: CNA
Trial access was approved in response to repeated calls from fishing industry representatives to lift seasonal bans, while adherence to shark management measures passed by regional fisheries management organizations was required, the statement said.
The agency would maintain its regulatory approach unless evidence is provided showing that the area functions as a shark nursery, or until the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission enacts official closures or time-based bans, the statement said.
In a separate statement yesterday, Greenpeace vessel the Rainbow Warrior observed four Taiwanese-flagged longline vessels operating in a seasonal closed zone from Aug. 4 to 10 last year, the environmental group said.
It filmed more than 10 hours of footage that documented at least 39 sharks being caught, including endangered shortfin mako, with catch records indicating that sharks were the primary target, the group said.
The fishing appeared to be “planned, targeted behavior,” Greenpeace said, adding that the agency had failed to enforce conservation rules, despite having established a 24- hour vessel monitoring center in 2017.
Huang Hsin-yi (黃馨儀), a marine project director for Greenpeace, said that the Fisheries Agency had not issued a single fine for those caught contravening seasonal shark bans since 2017, despite having the tools to monitor the activity.
The agency should implement systematic inspections of fishing activity, publish vessel tracking data for third-party monitoring and establish an electronic observer system similar to those used internationally, Huang said.
“If the government chooses not to investigate or neglects to deal with it, it will be tantamount to tacitly allowing illegal catches to enter the market,” she said.
The Fisheries Agency said that Taiwan bans fishing of several shark species, including whale sharks, basking sharks, megamouth sharks and great white sharks.
International bodies such as the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission prohibit catches of oceanic whitetip sharks, silky sharks, mobular rays and manta rays.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
RSS