Endangered Formosan Salmon Bounce Back in Central Taiwan

One of the world's rarest fish species, the Formosan cherry salmon, is seeing its population bounce back after almost going extinct in the 1990s.

Transcript

00:00 Deep in the valleys of Taiwan's Taroko Gorge, these crystal waters hold a fishy secret.

00:07 They're home to a growing population of one of the world's rarest fish species,

00:11 the Formosan cherry salmon.

00:14 One of the very few landlocked salmon species in the world, this fish species was on the

00:18 brink of extinction in the 1990s, when development and overfishing caused the population to dwindle

00:24 to just a few hundred.

00:26 But conservation efforts have brought that number back into the thousands.

00:33 Originally found only in the rivers of Shepa National Park, the fish have since expanded

00:49 into waters in the neighbouring Taroko National Park, thanks to focused breeding and release

00:54 programmes, a collaboration between the two areas.

01:14 As conservation efforts continue to protect this national treasure, the public is being

01:18 kept away from spawning and release areas.

01:21 To allow these extremely rare salmon the space they need to continue scaling up their numbers.

01:27 Eason Chen and Rhys Ayres for Taiwan Plus.

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