There are also gray rhinos in the river, and the potential risks should not be ignored.
"Once the gray rhino charges, it will be too late"
These delicacies are also imprinted in the lives of countless creatures in the sea and estuaries! Various fish and crabs that have not yet been studied by science depend on these once-abundant fry; the accumulation of nutrients begins with their tiny, plankton-like bodies, building catches measured in tons in the open ocean, and through migration forming one life chain after another linking mountain streams to the sea.
Apart from the gradual introduction of restrained management of the harvest of marine larval anchovies (Engraulidae larvae and juveniles), stream conservation from Keelung Port to the east side of the Hengchun Peninsula has become the final key to their survival. Therefore, these streams, for all Taiwanese people who rely on nearshore ecosystems and industries, are important development capital that we should not exhaust and should leave to future generations, and are also an indelible life memory and cultural gene belonging to this multi-stream island beside the Kuroshio waterway.
These signs of disappearance are not unfamiliar to everyone, but we have not responded, nor have we tried to grasp the problem. Like the metaphor of the "gray rhino," danger can be seen from afar on the grassland, but people often repeatedly neglect the risk of this huge beast charging, so that when it truly happens, there is no time to react.
Wanting scientific proof requires time, manpower and funding; when information is insufficient, maintaining the ecosystem as intact as possible is the safest approach. If we do not face the consequences of our insufficient understanding of ecology, do not cautiously confront the possible irreversibility of our rash changes, and are unwilling to invest in remedying our impoverished understanding of Taiwan's environment, then the so-called forward-looking water environment will, after construction, be left with only expensive water devoid of life.
(Note) The record of the consumption of Japanese rock-climbing goby in the mountains of Taipei comes from Mr. Lin Ming-yu's "Tamsui River Stories," published by Min Sheng Daily in 1986.