Taiwan October 2007: Hualien

Next morning we had a look at the part of Hualien's port where whale watching tours leave. At the gate is a large, life size Orca statue. It was very windy and bucketed down, so our impression was not that great. Overall, the area did not look very nice and inviting. A bucket of paint to cover some of the rusty spots would do wonders...

After that visit we once again left for the airport in order to take the short flight with Mandarin Airlines' Fokker 50 to Taichung. We checked in at the accommodation on campus (quite nice rooms!) and then were taken on a tour to one of the critical spots where the endangered Indo Pacific Humpback dolphins can often been seen. It is actually right next to the outflow of the cooling water from the local power station. At the entry to the breakwater was the following sign:

Walking down the breakwater proofed to be quite a challenge. It was very windy/stormy, and we got into a sandstorm. In the photos you can see that from the distance the power station disappears behind a cloud of sand. In order to get to the end of the breakwater, we had to walk right through it. Rest assured we had sand in ears, mouth, nose, etc. for a couple of days... Unfortunately, we did not see any dolphins - most likely due to the recent typhoon they avoided this area.

After our walk at the power station we were taken along large areas of reclaimed land. Huge areas were reclaimed from the sea, with some serious consequences. Mostly, with significant loss of mudflats. New wind mills were installed for the generation of "green" energy. However, these windmills are contentious, and opponents found a number of reasons why they are pretty useless (seasonal, unsteady wind, threat to wading and seabirds, noise pollution, visual pollution, to name but a few). Right next to the windmills, we also saw a large landfill type dump. Since the area is full, they are now taking rubbish out and transport it to other dumps. This dump is open, and the wind blew lots of plastic bags and other debris out to sea.

A heron taking off from the rubbish dump. We saw a number of these birds sifting through the rubbish for food.

Other criticism of the huge land reclamation was that large habitats for wading and shorbirds were lost, and that the land was not even needed. Even now, only a small part of the whole area is actually used for industrial purposes - the rest is simply empty.

Information on the windmills. If I remember right, the three figures are wind strength, rounds per minute of the propeller, and energy generated. But my Chinese is not very good (i.e., non-existant), and my memory is fading, so I won't bet on it!

Next day the 12th Symposium on Cetacean Ecology and Conservation started at Providence University in Taichung. I had my two presentations on the second day, and it was funny to see my abstracts in Chinese (click for Abstract 1 and Abstract 2)! I took the camera only the second day, so sorry guys, if you presented on the first day!