From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   In Taiwan’s Waters, a Hunt for Tiny, Wriggling ‘Gold’   
   by Amy Chang Chien and Tiffany May, March 31, 2023, NY Times   
   The hunters waded into the water after dark, their headlamps beaming as they   
   tossed nets into the crashing waves over and over again.   
      
   All night, they shook muck from the nets, sorting out their prizes: wriggling,   
   transparent baby eels, each no thicker than a vermicelli noodle. They were   
   worth their weight in gold, or nearly. The fishermen dropped them into jars of   
   water, which some of    
   them hung around their necks on string.   
      
   “Sometimes it’s gold, sometimes it’s dirt,” said Dai Chia-sheng, who   
   for a decade had spent his winters fishing for glass eels, as the baby eels   
   are called. Brought in by the ocean currents every year, the eels had lured   
   families like Mr. Dai’s    
   to Taiwan’s coasts for generations.   
      
   But the lure is fading.   
      
   “We used to see the industry as profitable, but now more and more people   
   have doubts,” Mr. Dai said.   
      
   Around the world, there are far fewer eels than there used to be.   
   Conservationists say that the most commonly traded eel species are threatened.   
   In Taiwan, as elsewhere, their numbers have dropped because of overfishing,   
   the loss of their riverside    
   habitats to development and, more recently, climate change, said Han Yu-shan,   
   a professor at the Institute of Fisheries Science at National Taiwan   
   University.   
      
   In the 1980s and ’90s, Taiwan’s eel industry was thriving, fueled by   
   Japan’s appetite for unagi. There were years when exports to Japan alone   
   totaled $600 million. But those days are gone.   
      
   In 2022, Taiwan exported just $58 million worth of eels in total. China, whose   
   vast deepwater fleet has been accused of endangering fishing stocks worldwide,   
   long ago eclipsed Taiwan as Japan’s main source of imported eels.   
      
   Professor Han said that while global warming’s effects on eels had not been   
   closely studied, fishermen in Taiwan think that changes in temperature affect   
   the tides that bring in their catch.   
      
   “The warmer the seawater is, the lower the fish would swim,” which makes   
   them harder to catch, said Kuo Chou-in, 68, president of the Taiwan Eel and   
   Shrimp Exporters’ Association.   
      
   Fishermen like Mr. Dai sell their eels to wholesalers along the Lanyang River   
   in Yilan County, easily spotted by the signs that read “accepting eels.”   
   Wholesalers pay as much as $40 per gram — gold is about $63 for the same   
   amount — with about    
   six eels to a gram.   
      
   From there, they go to aquaculture farms, where they are raised to maturity.   
   (To protect its dwindling stocks, Taiwan has banned the export of glass eels   
   during the winter fishing season, but many are smuggled out as part of a   
   global, multibillion-dollar    
   black market.)   
      
   Before being flown to Japan and other countries, mature eels’ last stop in   
   Taiwan is a packaging plant, where they’re packed in bags of water with   
   thick slabs of ice. Ms. Kuo, the export association president, owns one of   
   those plants, in the    
   northern city of Taoyuan.   
      
   She is a rare woman in a male-dominated industry. On a winter evening, she   
   strode the floor of her plant in galoshes, talking to clients on the phone and   
   occasionally dipping her arms into vats, to catch the slithering eels and sort   
   them into streams.   
      
   Ms. Kuo began her career at 21 with a Japanese import-export company that   
   dealt in, among other things, eels. She caught her first glimpse of them as an   
   interpreter, during a site visit at a packaging plant. She was fascinated by   
   how the workers, using    
   only their hands, caught the eels and accurately judged their weight.   
      
   After 17 years at the company, Ms. Kuo lost her job when Japan’s bubble   
   economy crashed. She went into business for herself in 1992, depleting her   
   savings and mortgaging two properties to buy factory equipment. She said she   
   slept in her car for years.   
      
   Eventually, the frugality and hustle led to a grander lifestyle. Ms. Kuo now   
   drives a convertible and has been profiled in Taiwanese media (which dubbed   
   her “the eel queen.”) She once appeared on a Japanese television show to   
   cook samples of her    
   product for a panel of judges.   
      
   “The Taiwanese eels won the competition,” she recalled with a smile.   
   “Our eels are the best.”   
      
   Glamour is harder to find in the often-polluted estuaries where glass eels are   
   caught. The fishermen stand for hours, dipping basket-like nets in and out of   
   the water, or they swim out after tying themselves to metal anchors on the   
   beach.   
      
   Chen Chih-chuan, a part-time technician, said he almost died once while   
   swimming for eels. “I lost the strength to pull the rope. I let go and let   
   myself float in the sea,” he recalled during a break along the Lanyang River.   
      
   “Now I’m older and more experienced,” said Mr. Chen, who wore a green,   
   rubbery full-body suit and yellow boots. “I won’t push myself to that   
   extent.” He leaped back into the waves.   
      
   Mr. Chen said he had managed to make $8,000 this season — an amount he was   
   satisfied with, though down from previous years.   
      
   The price of eels plummeted during the pandemic, as restaurants closed and   
   global shipping was thrown into disarray.   
      
   Chang Shi-ming, 61, caught eels as a young man near the city of Changhua on   
   Taiwan’s western coast. In the early 1990s, a sprawling petrochemical plant   
   went up there. Smoke and steam rise from its many chimneys, blanketing the   
   nearby grass with white    
   dust. He said the harvest has never been the same.   
      
   “We’ve seen so much damage over the past years,” Mr. Chang said.   
   “There are very few eels this year.” That, at least, is what he hears;   
   about 20 years ago, Mr. Chang switched to cultivating clams, which is less   
   labor-intensive.   
      
   His eldest son works at the petrochemical plant. “It’s just a job,” Mr.   
   Chang said.   
      
   Chiang Kai-te, 43, a part-time construction worker, had spent many years   
   working odd jobs when a friend’s success convinced him to try eel fishing.   
   He moved from his hometown to a village by the Lanyang River. He saw his   
   4-year-old son and his parents    
   only on weekends, when they visited.   
      
   The work had proved hard to master and the nightly catch difficult to predict,   
   ranging from 10 to 100 baby eels. On a recent outing, he caught fewer than 20.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)