Wuling Farm takes action to conserve rare salmon species

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 10, 2006. It reports that officials at Wuling Farm have reclaimed most of the land that had been leased to fruit and vegetable farmers in an attempt to conserve the Formosan landlocked salmon that breed nearby.

In recent years, water pollution caused by the pesticides used by fruit and vegetable growers in the Wuling Farm area has been blamed as one of the factors that contributed to the decline in the population of the rare fish. Other contributing factors include frequent typhoons and summer storms that affect water levels in the rivers where the fish lives, and global warming that is believed to have led to a lower breeding rate.

In order to solve the problem of water pollution, the Veterans Affairs Commission as the owner of the Wuling Farm has been reducing the amount of land leased to fruit and vegetable growers in the past several years. Today, only 40 hectares of land is still leased to farmers. Even this will be reclaimed soon for reforestation.

There are four categories of fish endemic to the Chichiawan Stream area, which is part of the Sheipa National Park in central Taiwan. Of these four types of fish, the Formosan landlocked salmon is the most prominent. While it is an endangered species endemic to Taiwan, it has also been recognized as a subspecies of the cherry salmon, a throwback from the last Ice Age. The salmon became landlocked during the glacial epoch in frigid mountain streams. Its discovery in subtropical Taiwan is regarded by biologists as a miracle. Similar species are normally found in much colder areas such as Japan, South Korea and northern China.