We have completed this year’s (2017) coral reef overall examination survey for the South Penghu Marine National Park, and on the whole, the coral reef overall examination survey results for this year show that the average coral coverage rate is about 60%, although it has slightly decreased as compared to 2016 (64.5%), the coral coverage rate is still higher than that of the healthy coral reef standard (50%) on the whole. However, the indicator organism quantity is still quite low, revealing that a certain amount of capture and environmental stress must still have been experienced, hence endeavors should still be continued towards environmental conservation.

In order to conduct long-term transitional analysis for the environment, surveys have been conducted continuously at the immobilized sampling stations set up at the 4 main islands within the scope of the National Park since 2013. The survey outcomes for this year are as follows: there are a total of 9 stations at Dongji Island, Siji Island, Dongyuping Island and Siyuping Island, and the average coverage rate for each island was 63.1%, 47.2%, 61.0% and 68.8%, respectively, with the highest being the east side of Dongji Island at 80.6%, while the lowest being the east side of Siji Island at 21.25%, with an overall average of 60.0%. On the whole, the survey outcome results decreased as compared to 2016. On account of the global warming-up of the seawater in 2016, albinism of corals has occurred in various sea areas one after another, and it was the year with the most drastic influences since 1998. The coral groups in the South Penghu Marine National Park sea area are based mainly on Acroporidae and Montipora foliosa, which are more sensitive towards temperature changes, hence the albinism of corals discovered in succession after the summer of 2016 within that sea area was speculated to be associated with this. And then in the very same year, there were 3 typhoons that directly hit Penghu from June to September, including severe Typhoon Meranti, moderate Typhoon Megi and Typhoon Nepartak. Therefore with such great environmental changes, the growth of corals was affected, with alcyonacea being the most evident, which may also be the cause for the decrease of coral coverage rate for the east sampling station of Siji Island this year.

 

In the aspect of indicator organisms, other than butterfly fish and giant clams conforming to the standard, the numerical values for other fish species and invertebrates are slightly lower or even zero for majority of the sampling stations. However, after several years of continuous monitoring, the quantity of large-scale economy fish species such as parrot fish and grouper have slightly increased although still not conforming to the standard; whereas the quantity for black sea cucumber and Black tarzan that have been captured in large quantities during the previous few years has already recovered significantly after protection from the Penghu County Government, while the crown-of-thorns starfish have not been discovered in the periphery of the 9 sampling stations for this year.

The abundant sea area ecology of the South Penghu Marine National Park is gradually gaining respect from the people of Taiwan with each passing day. More people are attending local water recreational activities day by day as well, therefore we once again make an appeal to visitors that correct knowledge regarding getting close to the ocean should be established prior to experiencing sea activities. Moreover, they should listen to the activity instructors’ explanations to avoid causing damages to fragile coral reefs due to one’s own careless actions.