For a (weird) introduction to this topic, refer to Conventional Industries (1).
This section is about fishing and aquaculture, which is - as you might imagine - a huge industry in Taiwan. Many Taiwanese people eat fish, many Taiwanese people catch fish, and both fishing and aquaculture have a long history in Taiwan.
III. Fishing 漁業
For this section I also consulted Taiwan's Fishing Industry 台灣的漁業 and Taiwan's Aquaculture Industry 台灣的養殖漁業, both written by Hu Shing-hua 胡興華 and part of Walker Cultural's 遠足文化 Taiwan Geographical Encyclopedia 台灣地理百科.
1. Waters around Taiwan provide habitat for 2500 species of invertebrate, 300 species of crab, 270 species of shrimp, and 2600 species of fish.
2. Six types of fishing are done in Taiwan. These are: (a) coastal 沿岸, (b) offshore 近海, (c) deep sea 遠洋, (d) ocean aquaculture 海面養殖, (e) inland aquaculture 內陸養殖, and inland fishing 內陸漁撈. The last of these, inland fishing, is of little economic importance.
a. Coastal fishing is defined as either fishing done within 12 nautical miles 浬 of shore, or as the distance a boat can travel to and from port in a single day.
b. Offshore fishing is defined as fishing done between 12 and 200 nautical miles from shore.
c. Deep sea fishing is defined as fishing done more than 200 nautical miles from shore. This is Taiwan's most important type of fishing, and accounts for 46% of the total catch.
d. Taiwan's ocean aquaculture can be divided into two types: shallow and deep. The shallow type is done in the intertidal zone, and primarily involves the production of oysters and clams. The deep type is done beyond the low-water line (or mark)*, and tends to involve fish raised in cages.
e. Inland aquaculture can be divided into the freshwater and saltwater types. This type of "fishing" accounts for 31% of the total catch. Eels and shrimp are often the product of freshwater aquaculture, while milkfish 虱目魚 is the most commonly seen product of the saltwater type.
A. Fishing Tools/Equipment 漁業器具
1. Deep sea fishing wasn't an important industry until after the government built Kaohsiung's Chien Jen Port 高雄前鎮漁港 in 1967.
2. Commonly seen fishing methods/equipment include: single boat trawling 單船拖網, "tent netting" 叉手網, "stone fish weirs" 石滬, gillnetting 流刺網, individual fishing/angling 一支釣, longline fishing 延繩釣, "coral cutting" 摃灘, "hand dredging" 耙網, seine netting 低竿網, drift netting 巾著網, pair trawling 雙船拖網, swordfish spearfishing 鏢旗魚, and squid fishing 魷釣.**
B. Fishing Ports 漁港
I also discussed this topic in the Fishing Ports of Taiwan entry.
1. There are four types of fishing port in Taiwan, defined by size and number of facilities/services. The first type is the best, and includes Kaohsiung's Chien Jen Port 高雄前鎮漁港, Keelung City's Ba Dou Dze Port 基隆市八斗子漁港, Yilan County's Nan Fang Ao Port 宜蘭縣南方澳漁港, and Penghu County's Magong Port 澎湖縣馬公漁港. Most ports in Taiwan are of the second, third, and fourth types.
C. Aquaculture in Taiwan 養殖魚
1. Aquaculture has been practiced in Taiwan for over 300 years, since the Dutch founded a colony in Tainan 台南.
2. During the Japanese Imperial Administration, before deep sea fishing was viable, aquaculture accounted for as much as 40% of Taiwan's total catch.
3. Taiwan's "aquaculture revolution" from 1961 onwards had an enormous effect on aquaculture in Southeast Asia and Mainland China. During this revolution, new fertilization techniques were discovered, and new species of fish were cultivated.
D. How the Mullet 烏魚 Attracted the Chinese to Taiwan
1. Fisherman from Mainland China first came to Taiwan's main island from Penghu 澎湖. At that time, they were drawn here by the spawning cycle of the mullet 烏魚, which migrates from south to north Taiwan (and back again) around the winter solstice. Eventually these fishermen settled down in Taiwan to take better advantage of the catch.
2. After 1976, it became possible to farm mullet, and this type of aquaculture steadily diminished the percentage of mullet caught offshore.
E. Southern Taiwan's Household Fish - The Milkfish 虱目魚
1. The milkfish is Taiwan's most-farmed fish. Cultivation of this fish began in An Ping District 安平區, Tainan 台南, and from there spread outward to other parts of Taiwan.
2. Taiwan was the first country to develop a method for milkfish reproduction within aquaculture pools. This was one of the big events marking the "aquaculture revolution" from 1971 onwards. Before this development, those raising milkfish were dependent on eggs harvested from the wild.
3. The "growing season" for milkfish in Taiwan begins around April and ends in October. The milkfish are very sensitive to changes in temperature, and if the temperature drops below 8 Celsius they begin to die. For this reason they are not raised during the coldest months.
4. There are two methods of raising milkfish. The traditional, or "shallow flat" method 淺坪式, and the "deep water" method 深水式, which relies upon more artificial feed and machinery. The "deep water" method produces a larger catch, but is more expensive to do.
F. Shrimp 蝦
1. Farmers in Taiwan primarily raise four kinds of shrimp. These are: the grass shrimp 草蝦, prawns 斑節蝦, the Pacific white shrimp白蝦,***, and the "freshwater long-armed shrimp" 淡水長臂蝦 or "Thailand shrimp" 泰國蝦.
2. Some varieties of shrimp are even more sensitive to temperature changes, so they are not cultivated year-round.
G. Abalone, Clams, and Oysters 貝養殖
1. Chinese people have been raising shellfish since the Neolithic.
2. Shellfish grow best in estuaries, and river pollution has forced many former shellfish farmers into inland aquaculture.
3. Abalone 九孔 is a shellfish primarily grown on Taiwan's east coast. It can be raised inland in pools.
H. The Beginning of Squid Fishing Under Japanese Rule
1. In 1913 the Governor of Taiwan 台灣總督府 sent an expeditionary crew to fish for squid in north Taiwan. This expedition proved that the squid fishery could be profitable.
2. Until the Second World War disrupted fishing, crews working under the Japanese Imperial Government from 1932 onwards left ports in Kaohsiung 高雄地區 to fish for squid in the Philippines, Malaysia, and New Guinea.
3. Squid are caught using a the 美式圍網 "American fence" method, developed in the U.S. A net is suspended between a larger boat and a smaller boat, and the smaller boat steers a circular path from one end of the larger boat to the other. The squid are thus trapped within the net. This is also done with three boats - one large and two small, with the two smaller boats pulling different nets and steering in half circles.
4. Taiwanese squid boats ply the waters of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, and more than 1000 Taiwanese fishing craft are engaged in the squid fishing industry. It's a HUGE business, employing thousands.
I. Squid and Other Cephalopods 頭足 as Seafood
1. Squid fishing began in earnest in the 1970s. Before that point, most squid consumed in Taiwan were imported. One of the most important fishing grounds for Taiwanese squid boats is the area between Argentina and the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic.
J. Coral "Fishing"/Harvesting 珊瑚漁業
I also wrote about this topic in the Coral entry.
1. Coral sculpture came to Taiwan from Japan in the 1920s. The art of coral sculpture reached a high point in the early 1980s, and has declined since then. Taiwan was once referred to as "The Coral Kingdom" 珊瑚王國.****
2. Coral is dredged from the ocean floor using long nets. 8-12 people man each coral boat, using a netting method first developed in the Philippines.*****
K. Whale Hunting in Taiwan
1. Taiwan's first (known) whale hunt was attempted off the coast of south Taiwan in 1920, again under the direction of the Governor of Taiwan, who was working under the Japanese. They used both Norwegian boats and a method of whale hunting done in Norway.
2. World War Two brought an end to large scale whale hunting in Taiwan, though it was revived on a smaller scale after the Kuomintang took over. In 1981, the Department of Economics 經濟部, in part due to pressure from the Americans, declared whale hunting illegal.******
3. In 1990 whales were declared a "protected species" 保育動物, and in 1996 the first whale watching society was established.
*This "low-water line" (or "low-water mark") can also be defined as a distance of 12 nautical miles from a country's coastline. As the boundary of the intertidal zone, it is the dividing line between coastal and ocean waters.
**I was unable to find adequate English terms for the types of fishing in quotation marks. The "tent netting" listed is done with a tent-shaped net that is held in the hands. "Stone fish weirs" are the rock structures commonly seen in pictures of Penghu 澎湖. "Coral cutting" is now illegal in Taiwan. It involved dredging up a piece of coral and removing the shellfish from it. "Hand dredging" involves a kind of metal scoop operated manually. "Fishing Techniques" is a HUGE topic, and English speakers who want more info should probably start with the Wikipedia article.
***I'm assuming it's the Pacific white shrimp, since this makes sense geographically. There are several kinds of white shrimp!
****By whom? The book doesn't say!
*****[Dear Government of Taiwan: coral dredging should be illegal. I don't care what kind of restrictions you THINK are being enforced, or what kind of "quotas" you think the coral companies are observing!]
******The Chinese here says: "公告禁止捕鯨" which I translated as "declared whale hunting illegal." "Restricted" would be a better translation of "禁止," especially since we are talking about the Department of Economics, and not a law enforcement agency. But what would it matter if the Department of Economics "restricted" something? What powers of enforcement does it have? Since I don't know the ins and outs of this particular part of the Taiwanese government, I found it less confusing to translate "禁止" as "declared illegal."
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