No bycatch but too much tuna
Once every few weeks we visit the Chijin(旗津) Island fish markets to buy a big bucket of fish. This is a small market right inside the fishing harbour with 20 or so regular vendors and up to 10 irregular ones that show up when there is enough of something to sell. The majority of seafood on offer is pretty consistent but every time we go there is sure to be a new variety of ocean protein I haven’t seen before.
There is such a huge range of fish, crustaceans and shellfish. Nothing it seems is left behind or wasted. Indeed, there is no bycatch from a Taiwanese fishing boat.
The dock area is used by fishermen to unwind their nets for repair. As you can see from the size of the final catcher these nets don’t let anything escape.
Occasionally there are large containers of small fish being weighed and freighted to become fish stock in something. They are not well chilled, have the smell of sitting in the sun and are already attracting flies. Something to think about next time you slurp some fish-ball soup.
Crabs of all sizes and shapes are for sale.
Shellfish too; nothing from the ocean is short of a Taiwanese recipe.
One of the changes I have noticed over the years is the increasing abundance of large open water fish such as tuna and swordfish. The efficiency with which these are harvested bodes badly for the world’s tuna fish stock. On our recent habour tour we saw as many as 15 of the Pacific tuna fleet in dock. These are huge boats along with there large tenders used to haul the nets around tuna schools. Also below a large supply and store vessel that runs with the fleet.
While sashimi is plentiful and cheap today I suspect that will not be case for much longer.
So while all the fish that are caught are efficiently used, fishermen are also very efficiently catching all the fish available. Admirable and shameful at the same time.
[...] Shan Ding Lu visits the Qijin Island fish market. [...]
Awesome photos. The fish markets here are amazing. They’re so much fun to wander through and quite different in comparison to other fish markets I have been to around the world.
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Stephen reply on October 14th, 2008:
Thanks Carrie,
The fish market format is similar all over Taiwan. Fresh and preferably alive is very important for buyers.
It one of the places I never tire of visiting.
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Hello,
I’m new to Kaohsiung and would love to visit this fish market. Is it every morning? How early?
Thanks! Love the blog
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Stephen reply on October 16th, 2008:
You know, we visit it on Saturday mornings around 7am. I suspect it is open every morning but can’t be sure.
The best fish market to visit is the Donggang market south of Kaohsiung. I have only visted that one on weekend afternoons.
Here is a google map of the three local fish markets I am familiar with.
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The direct link if the map above doesn’t show.
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Great photos and report. I love wandering around the fishing harbours and markets – anywhere really, not just Taiwan. I also love eating the catch. What I hate though (and makes me a hypocrite because I shouldn’t really eat Taiwanese seafood due to this) is the environmental practices of the Taiwanese fishing fleet. They are some of the worst in the world – one reason there’s no bycatch is because all the things like dolphins and albatross are disposed of at sea. Some of those long line tuna boats have bets up to 1 mile long with thousands upon thousands of hooks.
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Stephen reply on October 30th, 2008:
Thanks cfimages,
All that tasty and plentiful seafood does come at an environmental cost. Likewise I love eating seafood but worry about the poor fish stocks. I’m sure it will be within our lifetime that many of the fish in these markets become extinct.
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