Xu Chengyi / how does Taiwan become the leader of the global noon fish industry? Looking at the future of farmed noon fish from the growth potential of wild noon fish

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Many people have heard the proverb "one afternoon, two Red gauze, three Pomfret and four Macca," meaning that wild noon fish is the most delicious seafood along Taiwan's coastal waters, but not many people have experienced the delicacy of lunch fish. Except for delicious lunchtime and bamboo lunchtime (large wild midday fish), even the farmed noon fish with lower prices are not the household seafood commonly eaten by Chinese people.

However, according to the statistics of the United Nations, Taiwan is the country with the largest number of noon fish farmed and exported in the world. in 2019, the national noon fish culture volume is about 12000 tons, of which more than 8, 000 tons are sold to China, accounting for 70% of the output. At present, because China has not yet carried out the cultivation of noon fish on a large scale, Taiwan has the industry first advantage. however, Taiwan noon fish faces risks such as weakening of species and low technical threshold. If it fails to innovate, once the quality of Chinese culture catches up, Taiwan noon fish may follow in the footsteps of grouper and become a laggard from a forerunner.

The potential of noon fish is definitely not only in the Chinese market, it is an international fish species and another opportunity for aquaculture in Taiwan, and the development opportunity for fish farming in Taiwan is likely to be hidden in the DNA of Taiwan's wild noon fish, which deserves the attention of the aquaculture industry.

In March 2020, the six-year-old wild midday fish caught (photo source / Xu Chengyi) was farmed with "four-finger horse carp" and dominated by "scaly four-finger horse carp".

Noon fish in Taiwan refers to the "mackerelidae". According to the current research, there are seven species of fish that can be called noon fish in Taiwan, while the two species with relatively high economic value are the relatively large "four-finger horse carp", including the "four-finger horse bream Eleutheronema tetradactylum", which is mainly cultured, and the new fish species "multi-scale four-finger horse fish Eleutheronema rhadinum", which was identified only in 2004, but it actually existed for a long time. It is just that in the past, people thought it was a "four-fingered horse", but it was not confirmed until 2004 that it was a "scaly four-fingered horse".

At present, Taiwan's farmed noon fish are mainly "yellowfin" species, which are introduced from Indonesia, but it is said that there are also a small number of "black fin" noon fish culture. it is just that these black fin midday fish should be due to changes in body color caused by the culture environment, not the scaly four-fingered horsefish that are common in the wild.

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The midday fish is a carnivorous species that lives near the muddy sea floor along the coast. Its name comes from China, because the sea area of southeastern China is also the producing area of the midday fish, and in May every year, the midday fish will swim into the harbor to lay eggs, which is the peak of the catch. therefore, the fish coming in at the tail end of the "noon" festival is called "noon" fish. It is also known as bamboo shoots in Fujian and "Ma Youyu" in coastal areas of Guangdong. It may be because the word "Ma + you" extends into a scientific name that has nothing to do with "mackerel" (Note: "mackerel" is the scientific name of "mackerel" in China, which has nothing to do with noon fish.

However, in Taiwan, the production season of wild noon fish is between the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Qingming Festival every year, not in May. But because we know so little about Taiwan noon fish, there is even less research on its ecology. Until March 2020, Su Nanjie, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Biology and Fisheries Science of Haida, published Taiwan's first large-scale study on the ecological resources of noon fish on Fisheries Research. A total of 5362 wild midday fish were sampled, all of which were scaly four-fingered horsefish with a fish age of 174,652 days and a tail fork length of 11.5-78CM. This is the first more formal study of this fish in Taiwan.