This afternoon our friends took us out for a drive. We went to Fulong past Keelung and stopped and parked up. We walked to the beach and it was a beautiful stretch of coast that I have never seen before because it is slightly obscured by the roadside trees and hotel complex. As we walked almost right up to the shore line, I noticed a medium sized dead blowfish. I pointed it out to my son and told him what it was. I stood up again to continue my walk and then to my horror I realized this this single dead specimen was one of literally thousands dotted all down the beach. I thought at first that perhaps as most of them were blowfish there was some sort of spawning season event on and then once they had spawned they had died and washed up on shore, but then to my astonishment we found several other species all along the same stretch.
Then…
To completely dumbfound me once and for all I found an entire, whole…
Dead…Pig! Half buried by the sand, half sticking out of it.
Holy Sh1t! What the F’ing hell is going on in Fulong for crying out loud! Thousands of dead fish and a pig. And that’s not quite the end of it either.
As if that wasn’t disgusting enough already, there were dead rats all over the place too. Not as many as there were fish, but tens of the things scattered around never the less, all bloated with burst stomachs.
Should someone be contacted over this? I really feel a call should go out to someone! Does anyone have a number?
[quote=“sulavaca”]This afternoon our friends took us out for a drive. We went to Fulong past Keelung (Jilong) and stopped and parked up. We walked to the beach and it was a beautiful stretch of coast that I have never seen before because it is slightly obscured by the roadside trees and hotel complex. As we walked almost right up to the shore line, I noticed a medium sized dead blowfish. I pointed it out to my son and told him what it was. I stood up again to continue my walk and then to my horror I realized this this single dead specimen was one of literally thousands dotted all down the beach. I thought at first that perhaps as most of them were blowfish there was some sort of spawning season event on and then once they had spawned they had died and washed up on shore, but then to my astonishment we found several other species all along the same stretch.
Then…
To completely dumbfound me once and for all I found an entire, whole…
Dead…Pig! Half buried by the sand, half sticking out of it.
Holy Sh1t! What the F’ing hell is going on in Fulong for crying out loud! Thousands of dead fish and a pig. And that’s not quite the end of it either.
As if that wasn’t disgusting enough already, there were dead rats all over the place too. Not as many as there were fish, but tens of the things scattered around never the less, all bloated with burst stomachs.
Should someone be contacted over this? I really feel a call should go out to someone! Does anyone have a number?[/quote]
Yes, someone should be contacted. I have no idea who. But that can’t be healthy or safe in any way.
the last time i was out in that area i saw many dead pufferfish too. i think someone told me it’s a relatively common thing over there. can’t say i saw any rats or pigs though.
Pile the blowish in the back of your car. Dry them out and sell them downtown to the pubs . Dry blowfish fish are coooool. Drink lots of beer too, you not the blowfish.
Yeah, couple weekends ago I noticed quite a few dead fish at Fulong, some on the beach and some floating. I was guessing it was pollution from the river judging by the location. An eagle circled for a while and snagged one of the floaters–awesome sight. The raptor must have known something was wrong because it dropped the fish back in the water.
I would really love to know what cased all those fish to die. You’d think someone from the EPA would have been on it already.
I don’t swim at Fulong anymore. I haven’t for a while. Something about the smell of the water turned me off it a while back. Shame really.
Sulavaca,
I have seen hundreds of dead puffer fish dumped at fishing harbors on more than one occasion. I guess they get pulled up in the nets. I’ve always wondered why they would just throw them back in the water when they are at sea and while they are alive instead of dumping their carcasses at the fishing ports. The ones you saw may have been dumped by a fishing boat and got washed up. On your next trip, stop by at a fishing port and you’ll probably see the same thing.
The dead pig thing. Sadly, I have seen it before during the last hoof and mouth outbreak. The ironic thing is, burning the carcass of a diseased animal could very well curb an outbreak, while dumping it will probably cause it to spread.
All causes seem natural. This is the email response I got from Wild At Heart:
[quote]Hi Jamie,
Thanks for your letter. My name is Pierre and I am a member of the Wild At Heart.
I live about 2 minutes walk away from the Baisawan Beach and also noticed the same phenomenon about 3~4 weeks ago. At first I thought it was caused by water pollution of some sort, but further investigation I found this same phenomenon happening all over around Taiwan.
According to the Agriculture Department, this is cause by the abnormally low water temperature brought by the recent cold front. This tends to affect those fishes hiding in shallow waters, and as far as I know, there are lots of blowfish up north during this season, which explains why you saw so many of them. The rats… since blowfish is posionous if consumed, they must be hungry.
The worst of this bizzard phenomenon apperently happened around the islands of Penghu County. The affected species are well over 200. A video to show you how bad it is in Penghu -(youtube.com/watch?v=UfB3xrspBKs).
Hope this help shad some light to your concern. However, these doesn’t seems to be anything we can do at this stage but help clean up the remains.[/quote]
I guess I won’t be going in the water this year after watching that video of Taiwan and the islands. I want to vomit now.
Yeah, the fish die-off due to the cold made the news a couple weeks back. Glad it wasn’t pollution!
Of course, this is part of the natural process of evolution. The hardier members of each species survived and will reproduce, and the species will be stronger.
I’m not sure I buy the cold water theory for the dead puffer/porcupine fish: These are not fish in fish farms in the tropical part of Taiwan, these are wild fish here in the north, which is sometimes affected by the cold current from China. Surely they are adapted enough to their environment not to have massive die-offs on slightly colder winters than average?
Secondly, I saw loads of dead spiny fish on North and East Coast beaches last year, including warm days in warm months. Also, that theory doesn’t account for the dead rats from the OP.
I heard a story from a scuba diver who said the boat pilot on a scuba boat in Kending told him that some of the fishermen poison the commercially useless puffer / porcupine fish so they don’t take up too much of the catch.
This would explain why there are so many dead porcupine /puffer fish in general along the coast. In the OP’s case, it could have been a big batch of poison, and the rats and even the pig might have died from eating the poisoned fish.
As to the EPA story, well … sounds like the usual save-face meadow muffins to me.
BTW, what a ghastly experience it must have been to see all those dead animals!
I also don’t buy the cold-water theory. I witnessed porcupinefish washed up dead in Hawaii, Guatemala, just a few weeks ago, where the water was very warm (close to the equator).
I’m guessing that, ironically, these poisonous fish are the most susceptible to polluted waters.
As for poisoning the fish, I had heard that one too.
I also heard that water is often poisoned by fishermen who are gathering fish that are intended to be sold for fish tanks. The poison stuns the fish, then they can collect larger amounts of them by net. The fish eventually come to, and then oftentimes die a few weeks later.
Wild At Heart is a pretty credible organization and they are no friends of the EPA so if they are claiming it was natural, I would believe it. The letter is correct that there was that massive die off in Penghu not long ago and that was entirely caused by lower water temps. This year is not a usual year don’t forget with La Nina around.
Maybe I could make Wild At Heart the beneficiary of the HUGE party I’m organizing in my Muzha digs after the end of April. NT$100 per person … should make about NT$50,000. We can call it the WILD PARTY.
[quote=“Stray Dog”]Maybe I could make Wild At Heart the beneficiary of the HUGE party I’m organizing in my Muzha digs after the end of April. NT$100 per person … should make about NT$50,000. We can call it the WILD PARTY.
Stay tuned for more info …[/quote]
Thanks for reminding me. We need to discuss the damage deposit before you move in.
[quote=“Muzha Man”][quote=“Stray Dog”]Maybe I could make Wild At Heart the beneficiary of the HUGE party I’m organizing in my Muzha digs after the end of April. NT$100 per person … should make about NT$50,000. We can call it the WILD PARTY.
Stay tuned for more info …[/quote]
Thanks for reminding me. We need to discuss the damage deposit before you move in.[/quote]
Don’t worry - if I know this crowd, there’ll be LOTS of deposits during the party!
