The abalone industry rises again, breeding is key, but the nuclear power plant looms as a concern

Earlier this year, the New Taipei City Agriculture Bureau and the Gongliao District Fishermen's Association launched the "Abalone Season," announcing that after passing through a peak production value of 2 billion and a trough in which output fell by 90 percent, the abalone industry was about to recover. Guo Jin-quan, a professor at National Taiwan Ocean University who has long studied abalone, believes that only long-term breeding work can allow the abalone industry to develop sustainably, and that operation of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant should be avoided; otherwise, the abalone industry of Taiwan's northeast coast will be wiped out by the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.

Various viruses and bacteria are all killers that murder abalone populations

Taiwan began artificially farming abalone in the 1960s. As aquaculture operators continuously improved farming techniques, output gradually increased, reaching its highest peak in 2001, with annual output of nearly 2,500 metric tons and a production value of 2 billion. But just two years later, output had halved, leaving only 1,000 metric tons. By 2009, Taiwan's largest abalone hatchery, "Xin Dongyang Abalone Farm," also announced that it was closing.

Abalone seedlings dying young, and adult shellfish also dying prematurely, are the reasons abalone output fell by 90 percent over ten years. Agricultural authorities and academia alike were searching for the culprits killing abalone populations. Vibrio alginolyticus, herpes-like virus, icosahedral spherical virus, and the mainland cold-water virus all had to take responsibility, and even changes in algal composition caused by global warming played a part. However, the most fundamental cause and the most thorough solution never emerged, so the abalone industry moved step by step toward a seemingly irreversible collapse.

Although the largest abalone hatchery closed, agricultural authorities recommended completely abandoning abalone farming for two to three years, or even switching to farming other seafood. But a few abalone farmers in Gongliao were unwilling to give up, and even went to Japan to seek strong abalone varieties, hoping to solve the predicament of Taiwan's abalone being weak in constitution and prone to disease.

Operators cultivate hybrid abalone on their own, and output rebounds as a result