Tsai Bing-kun (蔡炳坤), Deputy Mayor of Taichung City, presided over the “2012 One Thousand People Release Fish Fry” event held by Agriculture Bureau at Lishui Fishing Port (麗水漁港) today (June 8). Students of five elementary schools in Longjing District, including Longfeng (龍峰), Longjing (龍井), Longjin (龍津), Longgang (龍港) and Longhai (龍海), also took part in the event. Deputy Mayor Tsai told the students, “Catch only big fish, not small fish. Do not throw trash into the sea. Release fish fry today, wait for them to grow up, and then catch and sell them for big money." He also told the students that the fry releasing activity was very meaningful in that people should learn to love the ocean from an early age; people should not overfish and safeguard the livelihood of fishermen.
Taichung has very rich coastal resources but its coastal ecosystems have been destroyed because of overfishing in recent years. As a result, the catches have been dropping year by year and the livelihood of fishermen has been affected. To echo to the calls of the United Nations’ World Ocean Day on June 8, Deputy Mayor Tsai hoped that students can learn to love the ocean and our ecological environment and the livelihood of fishermen can be sustainably prosperous.
Ho Yi-ting (何宜庭), a 4th grader of Longgang Elementary School, said that he liked small animals and enjoyed the event very much. Nevertheless, some students complained the weather was too hot. To help relieve the heat, the organizers prepared big tents, watermelon, and grass jelly tea.
100,000 fries of the Black Porgy (黑鯛), or commonly known as Haiger (黑格) were released into the sea today. Black Porgy has a high economic value. A euryhaline fish, Black Porgy can adapt to the habitats in the sand and mud, the reef bottoms, the offshore areas, and the estuarine waters. Its auction price is NT$ 190-200 per kg. Its output value reached NT$ 9.83 million in 2011. It is a kind of fish very suitable for the offshore ecological environments in Taichung.
An education program to promote fish fry releasing together with quiz for prizes was held in Today's event. In addition, the Agriculture Bureau also gave out sweet potatoes, a local specialty in Longjing, as a gift to participants.