Fishery experience
Taiwan’s fishery industry is diversified, involving abundant labor resources, production cultures, and landscapes, and covers different production activities, such as breeding fishery, coastal fishery, inshore fishery, and pelagic fishery. In the early stage of fishery development, fish farms, coastal areas, and sea areas were the main space for fishermen’s work. However, on the ground of cultural inheritance, industrial transformation, and consumer awareness, more and more fishing experience activities, like fishery production, fishing port construction, fish auction, and processing, are provided to consumers for their own participation. For example, the local governments, fishermen’s associations, or communities of Gangkou, Houpi, and Buhou in Yilan County, Xinwu District in Taoyuan City, Zhunan Township in Miaoli County, Mituo District in Kaohsiung City, and Xinlong in Pingtung County have held experience activities of Taiwanese beach seine. Tamsui District in New Taipei City, Xinwu District in Taoyuan City, Waipu in Miaoli County, and Qimei Township in Penghu County are well-known places where people can experience the activity of traditional fishery in which stone tidal weirs are used. The experience activities of picking up snails and shellfish are held at Changhua Ha Ha Fish, Fangyuan Oyster Farms, Yunlin Horseshoe Claim Leisure Park, Tainan Qigu District coFishland, Hualien County Li Chuan AquaFarm, and Kinmen County Jinhu Beach Claim Festival. Marine operation activities include the net cage experience in Tanhou, Penghu and the set-net fishing experience in Hsinchu, Dong’ao, and Chaoyang of Yilan and Hualien Counties. Fish farm culture experience activities are carried out in Mailiao and Kouhu in Yunlin County, Aogu in Chiayi County, Taijiang in Tainan City, Yuang’an in Kaohsiung City, Jiadong in Pingtung County, and Dawen in Yilan County.
In addition to the fish consumption areas of Taipei and Taichung, there are fish markets in production areas, such as Daxi in Yilan County and Dongshi in Chiayi County, and Kaohsiung Ziguan fish market is the first to have passed HACCP standards in Taiwan. Moreover, in recent years the government has improved the environments of fishing ports at fishing boat production bases and port areas, by taking advantage of the opportunity of reallocation. They have also built floating piers, created water-friendly environments, and landscaped the entire fishing ports and fishing villages to provide places for visitors to rest.
The government has also actively promoted leisure activities in fishing ports. The annual selection of the top ten charming fishing ports has been conducted since 2008, and the annual selection of the gold fishing port has been conducted since 2020. These activities have successfully attracted people to fishing ports, made fishing port tourism more popular, and brought a large number of tourists to fishing ports every year to participate in various leisure fishing activities and to taste seafood. In the future, fishery production will not just be fishermen’s work, but also an opportunity for Taiwanese and inbound visitors to experience the country’s diverse fishery. Now, let us visit fishing villages immediately to feel the beauty of fishery production.
