China to blame for fishery disaster: scholar

National Taiwan Ocean University President Lee Kuo-tien aired the view while conducting a field survey of disaster zones in the island county off the southwestern coast of Taiwan.

According to Lee, snow melt from heavy snowstorms that hit many parts of China in late January and early February flowed into China’s southeastern coastal waters, which then drifted through the seas off Penghu.

Noting that the low-temperature, low-salt water flow from China impeded the Kuroshio Current, also known as the Black Stream, which usually flows around Penghu bringing warm, tropical currents northward, Lee said water temperatures in coastal Penghu consequently dropped sharply and led to a massive fish die-off in the county that depends on the fishing industry as the backbone of its economy.

In his observation, Lee said the so-called “M-type” phenomenon in socioeconomic development is also seen in meteorology, meaning that tropical regions have become ever hotter, while cold and polar regions are getting increasingly colder, just as the rich are getting richer and the poor becoming ever poorer.

“And both such climatic phenomena can affect Penghu, as it is located between tropical and colder regions,” Lee said, adding that since the entire global ecosystem has changed, the so-called 30-year cycle of fishery cold disaster in Penghu could also be broken.

He suggested that an efficient alarm and monitoring system be crafted to facilitate prevention of similar disasters in future.

Lee was among a score of scholars and experts in marine ecology, coral reefs, fish species and climatic changes, as well as central government officials, who had traveled from Taiwan proper to the outlying island to study the cause of the recent disaster, the extent of damage to fishing grounds and feasible relief measures.

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