The government of Taiwan establishes a task force to tackle starfish overpopulation

Kaohsiung, Aug. 18 (CNA) The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) on Sunday announced the establishment of a task force charged with tackling the overpopulated crown-of-thorns starfish threatening the ecosystem of corals in the oceans around Taiwan's Dongsha Atoll National Park. At a news conference in Kaohsiung Sunday, Interior Minister Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) revealed that aside from the support of the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ocean Affairs Council behind it, the cross-agency team will also include experts from Academia Sinica, the Taiwanese Coral Reef Society and National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) alongside professional divers to reduce the starfish population. Liu said the current plan is to have the task force sent to the national park in 10 deployments to clear out the starfish, with each deployment lasting a week. According to the Marine National Park Headquarters under the MOI's National Park Service, after an official call to recruit ...