Aquaculture：clam collection、oyster farming、cage culture

The custom of collecting food from intertidal zone began from forerunners obtained the foods from ocean. As the progress of fisheries techniques, many shellfishes can be cultured artificially, for example, clam and Taiwanese abalone. Because of the coastal landform and the specific of tidewater, clams are mainly cultured at Taichung, Changhua, Tainan and Kaohsiung. And the Taiwanese abalones were living at east coast of Taiwan originally, however cause of its good economic benefits, fishermen began to culture them by construct farms at coastal reef areas.

Depend on distances from sea shore, the marine culture fisheries can be distinguished into “shallow sea culture” and “cage culture”. Shallow sea culture is using the shallow sea areas outside of intertidal zone for culture. Cage culture is farther form the coastal line, fishermen use cage for culture between the low water mark to offshore water areas.

Oyster farming has become one of the most famous shallow sea culture in the west coast of Taiwan, and it got an age-old history of over 200 years. And oysters have very good nutritive value. Due to the specific landforms in west-south coast of Taiwan, you can see oyster farming at anywhere. The oyster farming boats are always packed in the harbor. A great part of farming works can only be done with hands, therefore oyster farming is always considered as drudgery.

Cage culture is by using special net, net supports and cables to build a three-dimensional cage in specific water areas, then culture saltwater fishes inside of it. For now Penghu has the clear and less pollution water areas, therefore it has the biggest scale of the cage culture.