Taiwan has reported a drop of 60 percent in the bluefin tuna catch this year after a proposal to ban trade in the fish was rejected at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in March.
So far this year, Taiwan has caught 1,141 bluefin, representing a 60 percent drop compared with a catch of 2,821 in the same period last year, Fisheries Agency Director-General James Sha (沙志一) said.
At the Donggang fish market in Pingtung County — the nation’s main port for tuna — fishermen have only caught 795 bluefin so far, a drop from 2,132 in the same period last year, he said.
Because of the decline, the wholesale price of the fish tripled from the NT$200 to NT$300 per kilo it fetched last year to between NT$600 and NT$800 this year in Taiwan, Sha said.
An alarm has been raised about declining fish resources in one of Taiwan’s bluefin tuna fishing areas, which ranges from Japan’s Ishigaki Island to the Bashi Channel and the eastern coast of the Philippines, said Hsu Chien-chung (許建宗), a professor at National Taiwan University’s Institute of Oceanography.
His research shows that in this area, the bluefin catch density has plummeted from 0.8 to 0.6 bluefin out of every 1,000 fishing net hauls 10 years ago to 0.2 now.
The average age of the fish caught has also been dropping — from nine years old on average, with an average length of 240cm, to about seven years old, with an average length of 220cm, Hsu said.
“The bluefin being caught are getting younger and younger,” he said.
Moreover, the volume of bluefin in every age group is dropping, Hsu said, adding that over the past decade, no mature female tuna bigger than 262cm had been seen in Taiwan’s bluefin catch.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS