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2009 PRESIDENTIAL SCIENCE PRIZE • Award Ceremony Program56 APPLIED SCIENCE CATEGORY • Academician I Chiu Liao 57

Personal Profile and researcH acHieVeMenTs

Dr. Liao was born in Tokyo, Japan on Nov. 4, 1936. He returned to Taiwan with his parents to settle down at the age of four. After studying in his new hometown for primary, junior and senior high school, he joined the Division of Fishery Science, Dept. of Zoology, at the National Taiwan University, indeed a grand achievement since his initial examination score was sufficient to grant him admission. He went to University of Tokyo for his masters and doctoral courses at the Graduate School of Fisheries. In March 1968, he obtained his Ph.D. of Agriculture Science. After his post-doctoral training, he immediately came back to Taiwan and started to work as a researcher under the Rockefeller Foundation Project in July 1968. He was among the first scholars to take his knowledge from abroad and use it to contribute to our mother country. These scholars were highly welcomed and accepted if they decided to work in universities or Academia Sinica. He, in the reverse, chose the branch of Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute (TFRI) as a place to start his practical research work on aquaculture, although it was then a low third in ranking under the Provincial Government of Taiwan. His experience and the versatility of his work in applied science at TFRI from the very beginning until his retirement is truly an exceptional model of work by science pioneers. At that time, the construction of the Tungkang Marine Laboratory was in progress, so upon his return he began his research at Tainan branch, TFRI. Even so, Dr. Liao overcame the difficulties and set a new record for breakthroughs on artificial propagation of grass prawn during his first four-months of work in Tainan. He then transferred to Tungkang Marine Laboratory and started to lead the research team on propagation of grey mullet. Once again, he accomplished another world-record in artificial propagation of this species. Then in 1978,

he led an international team to again create a world-record, this time on milkfish propagation.

Dr. Liao is a world-renowned aquaculture research, development, training and extension expert. Not only was he the first one in the world to establish the technology of artificial propagation in several economically important aquatic species, but he also transferred these technologies to fish farmers across the world. Thus, international scientists continuously paid attention to Taiwanese achievements in aquaculture science for four decades. With the publication of more than 450 papers in national and international journals/books/handbooks, and informative speeches in more than 130 international conferences/symposia, he has promoted Taiwan and Taiwanese practical technologies at an extremely high level.

Via leadership and hard-work based on record-setting breakthroughs in larval rearing techniques for grass prawn in 1968, Dr. Liao effected a giant leap in the development of the prawn culture industry in Taiwan. Consequently, this has led to a significant increase of farmed prawn production through scientifically based prawn farming systems and techniques. He has often received invites from well-known publication companies such as CRC Press and Blackwell, USA, Fishery Science Series, Japan and Elsevier and Springer, Netherlands to submit works for publication and hence his work is repeatedly cited by international researchers in aquaculture-related fields. His personal and his national reputation subsequently became well-recognized in the field of aquaculture. His studies have mainly contributed to the stable supply of larvae and fingerlings, which are the key factors for a reliable and profitable aquaculture industry. Moreover, his studies on optimal larval feeds, growth nutrients, water quality conditions, various pond designs, aquaculture engineering and post-harvest processing, have significantly established viable mass production of prawns followed by

Applied Science Category

Academician I Chiu Liao

Give a person a fish, and you feed him for a day.Teach him how to culture fish, and you feed himfor a lifetime

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economic growth. As such, other populations were eager to learn his techniques of which he has been fondly sharing since he commenced his research. His accomplishments laid a solid foundation for future successes in the prawn culture industry in the country, as well as it was a breakthrough for Asia and the world. In 1987, the annual production of grass prawn in Taiwan reached almost 100,000 MT, the top record at that time. Many were exported to Japan representing 51% of Japan’s total import for grass prawn. The industry also generated around US$470 million as foreign income for Taiwanese farmers and businessmen.

With regard to propagation and culture of grey mullet, Dr. Liao continued to undertake studies to refine the induced breeding and larval rearing techniques. His research team has succeeded in completing the generation cycle of this marine species, which is widely distributed in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. The result he obtained served as a solid foundation for the artificial propagation of other marine finfish species in many developing and underdeveloped countries. The established technology became highly important to those countries that were highly dependent on aquaculture because until then, the chance of developing the livestock industry was almost non-feasible. Nowadays in Taiwan, the highly valued grey mullet roe are mostly obtained from pond-cultured grey mullet instead of from the wild. This is a clear indication of applied science, from fundamental research to achieving economic importance and industrial significance.

Milkfish has been a major culture species for the past hundred years in Southeast Asian

c o u n t r i e s e s p e c i a l l y Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Being the team leader of an international project at Southeast Asian F i s h e r i e s D e ve l o p m e nt

Center (SEAFDEC) in the Philippines, Dr. Liao and his research team has published in the journal Aquaculture a paper entitled “On the induced spawning and larval rearing of milkfish, Chanos chanos (Forskal)”. They were then credited for having demystified the early developmental stages of milkfish for the first time in the world. More importantly, their research findings also produced complete and conclusive information on milkfish larval development and the establishment of larval rearing techniques. The aquaculture of milkfish in Taiwan can be divided into four phases: dependence on fry collected from coastal area; import of fry from the Philippines and Indonesia; balance on demand and supply of fry due to new technique of larval rearing; and export of over-produced fry to neighboring countries after 1978. It is truly a vivid example of progressive applied science. In recent years, both the Philippines and Indonesia followed the example set by Taiwan to produce a sufficient supply of fry in hatcheries. Newly developed technology for mass larval production served as a foundation for commercial production of milkfish.

Dr. Liao has accepted international trainees for short and long-term learning sessions from Australia, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Tonga, USA and Vietnam. Most of them have become leaders of prawn/fish farming R&D in their respective countries. Aquaculture industry will continue to advance only if recruitment of well-trained experts is

sustained. Dr. Liao’s lifetime devotion to research and development in aquaculture also contributed to many humanitarian projects that have improved human welfare. The promotion of aquaculture technology as developed through Dr. Liao’s innovative research has provided numerous career opportunities to scores of people worldwide.

During his 19-year term as Director of TML and 16-year term as Director General of TFRI, Dr. Liao showed us success in both software and hardware. He held international and bilateral conferences, and published journals and handbooks with the preemptive result being positive promotion of Taiwan. He was instrumental in the construction of research vessels, Penghu Aquarium, Institute Gallery, Fishery Product Examination and Service Center at Keelung, Aquatic Feed R&D Center at Tungkang, Research Buildings at Tungkang and Lukang, and e-Aquarium at Taitung. Before his retirement, he also secured a NT$1.74 billion grant for establishment of National Aquatic Genome Conservation Centers at Tainan, Lukang, Taitung and Penghu.

After his retirement as Director General of TFRI (1987-2002), Dr. Liao became a Chair Professor of two universities. He continues his research on aquaculture of other aquatic animals including eels, tilapias, groupers, white shrimp, red drum and cobia. He is also involved in the studies on stock enhancements and the development of new aquaculture systems. To quote him, “one shall continue to learn even at an old age,” and so Dr. Liao continues to devote his life to the improvement of the aquaculture research and development.

For the past 40 years, Dr. Liao has devoted his energy, his talents, and his visionary ideas in the field of aquaculture science. Through his tireless efforts and unselfish sharing of his research studies, the cit izenry of Taiwan and much of the world have benefited from seafood gourmet dining, protection of the natural ocean ecology, and

economically rewarding aquaculture industries. In summary, the breakthroughs achieved by Dr. Liao on the mass larval rearing and production of commercially important aquaculture species became instrumental in the rapid and significant global development of the aquaculture industry. Because of these technological breakthroughs, aquaculture production in Taiwan became sustainable, mostly meeting the demands of the domestic market, as well as the international market. The mass larval production of many important aquaculture species also contributed to the enhancement and restoration of aquatic habitats, through stock enhancement and sea ranching projects and meant that aqua-farmers would be less dependent on wild-caught seeds. Many private companies and aqua-farmers readily adopted the technologies developed. This generated employment and significantly contributed to foreign exchange through the export market. It also opened business opportunities for other aquaculture-related industries, including feed mills, fish processing plants and turnkey projects. Dr. Liao’s endless effort for sustainable aquaculture development has made a great impact and has become a model path for applied science progress.


THe STOrY Of a cHaMPION

If one lives in the mountains, one lives by the mountains; if one lives near the sea,

one lives by the sea. Scion of a political family, his interests lay not in treading the hustings, but rather in path-breaking endeavor – creating an aquaculture Mecca.

Early on, the Taiwan diet of shrimp and fish depended upon sea catches. Not only was the instability of the catch present a major problem, so was the safety of the fishermen who went to sea. From age 32 when he returned to Taiwan, I Chiu Liao, an Academician of Taiwan’s prestigious Academia Sinica and Chair Professor at National Taiwan Ocean University quit the confines of the ivory tower of Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University (NTU), choosing instead the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute closer to the life of the general public. Here, he has developed models and techniques for the larval rearing of grass prawn and artificial propagation of grey mullet and milkfish. Not only has his research been world-leading, he has built the Tungkang Marine Laboratory in Pingtung County into the world’s aquaculture Mecca. Had he chosen to patent his aquaculture technology as a business secret, he could have been both rich and famous, but Dr. Liao has unselfishly promoted his results among Taiwan’s fishing population, propelling the island of Taiwan, surrounded by seas, into becoming known as an aquaculture powerhouse.

Scion of a political family valuing honesty above all

I Chiu Liao was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1936 as the eldest son of the Liao family. His name I Chiu was a homonym, when pronounced in Japanese, with the name

of the famous Japanese monk, Ikkyū Osho. At age four, his family returned to Taiwan and took up residence in Fengyuan City, Taichung County. His maternal grandfather Kentarō Sato headed Taichung City during the Japanese colonial era. His paternal grandfather Liao Hsi Tung was chief of Fengyuan (now equivalent to the mayor of Fengyuan City). His father, Liao Chung-Hsiung was four-time chief of then Fengyuan Urban Township (he became mayor during his final term of office). I Chiu Liao’s youngest brother, Liouyi Liao, has carried on the family tradition of engagement in politics, serving as mayor of Fengyuan, magistrate of Taichung County, Minister without Portfolio of the Taiwan Provincial Government, National Policy Advisor to the Office of the President, Minister of the Interior and now, Secretary-General of the Office of the President. I Chiu Liao says, “In our family, our parents ‘practiced what they preached,’ you had to walk the straight and narrow path, and be a genuinely upright gentleman.” His parents often taught him that it wasn’t important if you made a lot of money, what mattered most is being a person of sincerity and integrity.

Testing into Taiwan’s top university; rendezvous with aquaculture destiny

While in senior high school, I Chiu Liao once accompanied his father courting votes during a political campaign. He thought to himself, “Why must you ask people for their vote if you are going to serve them?” The difficulty of answering this question indirectly impelled him toward academia and research. There was a big fishpond in I Chiu Liao’s house where his grandfather raised grass and silver carps, so he was familiar from a young age with aquatic creatures. During junior and senior high school, under the influence of his teachers, he developed an interest in living creatures and decided to pursue this route. In 1956, I Chiu Liao passed the entrance exam for NTU in the subject of his choice under the Fishery Biology Section, and became one of

the 3rd batch students of the university’s Zoology Department ( n o w , t h e L i f e Sciences Department of the School of Life Sc ience s). He wa s a good u n ivers it y student, loyal and generous to others and hard working. Thus, his unbreakable destiny with fish and shrimp was sealed and his career path set.

Heading overseas to Tokyo and conducting actual experiments

After graduating from university in 1960, he completed his military service and was discharged. Back then, most chose to pursue study abroad on a scholarship, and it was most expedient to apply for a scholarship to study in the United States. However, I Chiu Liao knew that the environments of Japan and Taiwan are similar, and that Japan was an advanced aquaculture nation, so he decided to pursue graduate study in Japan.

The chairman of NTU’s Zoology Department Dr. Yu-Hsi Moltze Wang, wrote a letter recommending his cherished student to study in Japan. However, Dr. Wang cannot speak nor write Japanese, so, after careful consideration, he had a secretary write the recommendation letter in Japanese. After which, he used a traditional writing brush to go over every strokes and dots of the letter. Academician Liao remains grateful to this day for this kindness. As a result, he successfully made his way to the University of Tokyo in April 1962.

Once he arrived at the University of Tokyo, resolving to “not shame his homeland,” he threw himself into his studies. I Chiu Liao points out that his advisor, Professor Yasuo Oshima, was a prominent and strict teacher at the university. Liao’s proposals for research projects on ricefield eels and on soft-shelled turtles were rejected. Later, Professor

Writter / Cai Yong-bin



Taiwan. This reached a peak in 1987, with annual output increasing to 100,000 metric tons. Dr. Liao’s research had become a major milestone for global shrimp cultivation.

When I Chiu Liao had just obtained his doctorate degree, the Republic of China’s Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR, now renamed the Council of Agriculture), under a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation of the United States, planned to build the Tungkang Marine Laboratory in Pingtung County. The JCRR dispatched aquaculture specialist Lin Shu Yen to Japan to take part in an academic conference. A classmate of Liao, Emeritus Professor His-Chiang Liu of NTU’s Institute of Oceanography, was a graduate student back then helping on the project. Lin Shu Yen asked Liu to introduce a good Japanese specialist to assist with the project. Liu recommended Liao to Lin: “We have someone from Taiwan who came here to study shrimp. Over the past six years, he has virtually come to personify shrimp!” Thereupon, the JCRR hired Liao as an aquaculture research project researcher. In July 1968, Liao returned to Taiwan and headed the research project. Because the project required coordination with the military before beginning construction, Liao temporarily went to a branch institute in Tainan. After reporting for work there, he encountered a senior classmate, Katsutani Kunio, who had arrived Taiwan three months before him, but who cannot speak Chinese, so undertaking research was difficult. As soon as he spotted Liao, the words gushed out in torrents.

I Chiu Liao felt that if one was going to do research on artificial breeding techniques, one must certainly start with healthy gravid female shrimp. So, five days after reporting for work, Liao went

to stay in Tungkang for three days, getting up at 4 A.M. to go to Tungkang’s fish market. He didn’t look like a fish peddler, which caught the eye of the Tungkang Fishing Association head, Lin Jin Sheng. After striking up a conversation, Lin agreed to help with what Liao wanted. Ten days later, Lin rode his motorcycle from Tungkang to Tainan. But when the two opened up the bucket of female shrimp, it was empty. With all the shaking on route, the shrimp had jumped out. Although the “female shrimp great escape” was a setback, at least it confirmed that it was feasible to “find gravid female shrimps.” Thereafter, they finally managed to buy three female shrimps via various channels.

While Dr. Liao and his work team spent the whole day working through the experiment, two of the three female shrimps produced Taiwan’s first batch of artificially-propagated grass prawns, a first record in the world. Liao photographed the entire process from cell cleavage to larval metamorphosis, a precious record of the study. In November 1970, Dr. Liao represented the Republic of China in presenting a paper at the 14th session of the Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council Symposium on Coastal Aquaculture in Bangkok, Thailand. Taiwan’s grass prawn propagation experiment became the first of such paper in the annals of global grass prawn breeding. However, Dr. Liao stresses that this research was not just a matter of producing scientific results, but also promoting the results among members of the private sector and the industry. “At that time, I had to beg and cajole fishermen to ‘make a bit of a sacrifice’ and even think of it as a ‘trick’”. The fishermen “earnestly implored” by Liao to give it a try, finally agreed and the results were surprisingly good. As the word spread and

Oshima accepted his proposal regarding the artificial feeding of fish and shrimp, and directed Liao to undertake a study of Japan’s most important shrimp, the Kuruma prawn. After collecting information and reflection, Liao chose “The Feeding Preferences of Kuruma Prawn” as his master’s thesis topic. While working at the University of Tokyo’s Aichi Fisheries Experimental Station, Liao went to the seashore and collected dozens of marine creatures, such as hard clams and sea worms, to feed to the Kuruma prawn. After repeated experiments and conducting statistical analyses over a period of time, Liao would return to Tokyo and report to Professor Oshima on his progress. In October 1964, over thirty faculty of the Fisheries Department evaluated his master’s thesis, gave it high marks, and approved his continued study towards a doctorate degree.

Academician Liao describes the experimental facilities at

that time as very simple and crude. He once went seven days and seven n ights without sleeping on a bed to thoroughly observe t he fe ed i ng b e h av ior

of Ku r u ma praw n. He says, this study required

replen i sh i ng t he fe ed every three hours, along

with weighing and measuring the amount fed to the prawns. “The first three days were OK, but by the fifth day, I was bushed. After that, I just grit my teeth and saw it through to completion!” The experiment helped Liao build a firm foundation and generated much first-hand data regarding the feeding of Kuruma prawns. In March 1968, Liao received his doctorate degree from the University of Tokyo for his dissertation, “A Study on Feeding Ecology of Kuruma Prawn”.

After receiving his doctorate degree, one of his senior classmates in the laboratory arranged for I Chiu Liao to go to the Fujinaga Kuruma Prawn Research Institute, to undertake post-doctoral research under Dr. Fujinaga Motosaku, a towering figure in the world of Japanese fish and shrimp research. After more than four months, Liao had established a solid foundation. He recommends that those wishing to follow in his research footsteps have to engage in post-doctoral research after receiving their degrees to verify what they have learned and further cultivate practical capabilities.

What was unusual was that, besides doing research while in Japan, Dr. Liao extensively read newspapers and watched NHK television programming, as well as talking with locals to instill familiarity with Japanese customs and culture. Not only did he handle his schoolwork, he also made sure to fully understand the situation of the time. He proudly says that Japanese were astounded by his accurate pronunciation of the local language. He feels that students studying overseas with language barriers face considerable hurdles to learning.

Becoming involved in marine research and successful propagation

“Japan has the Kuruma prawn, and Taiwan’s grass prawn is just as good!” In the 1960s, Taiwan only produced about 10 metric tons or so of grass prawn. From the 1970s to 1980s, artificial propagation techniques replaced the traditional process of tidal pond cultivation of wild-caught shrimp larvae in



Aquaculture. The results also confirmed I Chiu Liao’s status in the world aquaculture and hastened the development of the milkfish industry. Not long thereafter, Taiwan’s private sector followed this model to produce milkfish larvae on mass scale.

Unremitting research; affirmation upon affirmation

Taiwan’s climate is well suited for breeding shrimp. Dr. Liao has not kept his research results to himself nor has he applied for patents to earn royalties; all he has done is to continuously strive to promote his results on behalf of Taiwan’s aquaculturists. For example, at the peak of shrimp cultivation in Taiwan in 1987, annual shrimp output that year was more than 95,000 metric tons, over 42,000 tons of which was exported, generating US$470 million, the highest such export revenue of any country in the world.

Dr. Liao stayed at the Tungkang Marine Laboratory for 19 years and four months. He jokes that in doing so, he lived up to his name, “I Chiu,” which, in Chinese, means “for a long time.” Although he was in charge of administrative matters, he always considered himself to be a “researcher,” and never ceased doing research. In 1987, he went from the southern tail of Taiwan in Tungkang to its northern head in Keelung, to serve as Director General of the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute. There, he worked hard to create an outstanding environment. During his term heading the institute, he cultivated over 60 masteral, doctoral and professional-level

research personnel and organized many international conferences and academic exchanges, issuing publications and propelling Taiwan into a lofty position in the aquaculture world.

In terms of physical facilities, the then newly built 1,968-ton research ship “R/V Fishery Researcher I” was dispatched to support a deep-sea resource survey just offshore the Philippines by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and assisted in producing a west Pacific Ocean marine life identification guide. Dr. Liao secured funding for many facilities and a gene pool database budget of $1.74 billion for the institute. While President of the Asian Fisheries Society from 1998 to 2001, he organized the 6th tri-annual Asian Fisheries Society meeting at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

In 1969, he was an awardee at the 7th Ten Outstanding Youth Awards sponsored by the Jaycees International, Taiwan. In 1976, he was the first recipient of the Outstanding Scholar Award in Scientific and Technical Research by the Executive Yuan. Thereafter, he has received countless more honors including the privileged honorable life member of Asian Fisheries Society and World Aquaculture Society. He is the lone fishery scientist in Taiwan honored by such awards from two well-known international organizations. At the start of 1990, I Chiu Liao was elected as a Fellow for “having developed a Chinese scientific institution” at the Third World Academy of Sciences in Italy. Two years later in 1992, he was elected to the 19th group of Academicians of Academia Sinica. He is currently

more and more tried it, Taiwan’s shrimp aquaculture opened up to a bright new path.

After the success mass larval propagation of grass prawns, Dr. Liao also undertook research works on grey mullet breeding. At the end of November 1968, his research team moved to the Tungkang Shrimp Culture Center in Pingtung County. Although it was called a “center,” its facilities were simple and crude. Dr. Liao says that at the outset, there were only three people. Facing the sea and beaches, the researchers modified a sea beach house resort area to serve as a simple laboratory. They dug holes in the sand and spread out plastic sheets as temporary culture ponds. Then, all night through to daylight, they undertook experiments to artificially breed grey mullet. Many years afterwards, Liao’s girlfriend at that time, Nai-Hsien Chao, now a senior specialist at the Council of Agriculture’s Fisheries Research Institute, still often mentions the simple and crude breeding facilities they had back then. Dr. Liao laughingly says that at that time, whenever he met a government official, he would ask for funding. The government officials would often remark that “this rascal is always asking for money and people!” However, since he felt that “this money is not for me,” he gladly accepted it.

When he looked back at the failed attmpts by previous researchers to rear larval grey mullet, Liao found that newly-hatched larvae were cared for right down to the last detail in an artificial environment; yet, despite it all, the larvae died within a few days after hatch. So he changed his methods; he did not intensively care for a brood newly-hatched grey mullet larvae, he simply kept the water quality

constant. The result was that, two of the larvae survived, becoming the first two larvae in grey mullet artificial propagation history to be successfully bred. Three years later in 1972, he had cultivated over 23,000 grey mullet larvae. In 1976, the first generation of artificially bred grey mullet grew into adult fish and successfully bred the second generation, completing the model for breeding succeeding generations of fish derived from artificial cultivation, and completing what is called “generation cycle of grey mullet.”

New attempt to raise milkfish

Milkfish, also referred to as Koxinga Fish in Taiwan, have been cultivated for over four centuries in the area, especially in Tainan and Kaohsiung. With his success in artificial propagation of grass prawn and grey mullet, Dr. Liao considered developing techniques for artificially breeding milkfish to be his next challenge.

In 1977, the Aquaculture Department of Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center in Iloilo, Philippines first successfully used hormone treatment to captive milkfish spawners, but the resulting larvae only survived for two days. The chief of the center, Dr. Q. F. Miravite, an old acquaintance, invited Dr. Liao to the center to head an experiment, so Liao arrived in the Philippines in May 1978. However, he was unable to catch any milkfish breeder and was just about to give up, when, on the last day, they caught two female and one male milkfish. Among them, one was ovulating, marking the first time in the annals of milkfish research that a complete record had been made of hormone treatment, egg and

sperm stripping, embryo development and larval rear i ng. It revea led t he secrets of the most crucial larval period of a milkfish’s life. Liao published these results in the international a c a d e m i c j o u r n a l ,



Taiwan’s first and only scholar engaged in aquaculture research to be elected an Academician. He says, what makes him happiest about being elected is that it gives some hope and dreams to researchers engaged in agriculture, forestry, fishing and animal husbandry research. He hopes that it will encourage more young people to join the ranks of marine research and calls on the government to value the agricultural industry. In a 1998 CommonWealth Magazine “Influential 200, Soaring 2000”special edition, he was listed among the 200 most influential people in Taiwan over the past 400 years. Under the heading, “successful aquaculture industry revolution,” the story affirmed his contribution to Taiwan’s aquaculture development. However, he says, all the honors in the world cannot be compared with the simple utterance “thank you” from consumers and fishermen whom his research has helped.

At one time, Taiwan’s aquaculture had the appellation “Yu in the North, Liao in the South”. This referred to Emeritus Professor Hsiang-Ping Yu of the Department of Environmental Biology and Fisheries Science at National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) in Keelung, who specialized in shellfish taxonomy, and, of course, to Dr. Liao, who specialized in shrimp aquaculture down south in Tungkang, Pingtung County. In January 2002, when I Chiu Liao retired as Director General of the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute, NTOU retained him as a chair

professor, changing this to a l i fet ime ap p o i n t m e nt a s professor in 2005. W h e n t h e t w o f i r s t m e t , L i a o joked, “I have also s w u m n o r t h ! ” thereby punning i n C h i n e s e o n the surname Yu, which means “to swim.”

Liao is grateful for the courteous treatment he has received at NTOU. He has devoted himself totally to research, now having published over 450 articles and papers, among which more than 80 were completed after he retired. He often gives lectures or attends conferences at aquaculture academic institutions. Hsiang-Ping Yu says that I Chiu Liao “…is an extraordinarily conscientious scholar who is persistent about his work.” At 9 A.M., he arrives at his office, and often stays there until 8 or 9 P.M. before heading home. “At times I would get a phone call from him asking me about something, and would remind him that ‘Today is a holiday!’” Hsiang-Ping Yu highly esteems Dr. Liao’s attitude of academic rigor.

Liao current ly remains a member of six academic associations in Taiwan or overseas that are connected with aquaculture, and served as chairman of The Fisheries Society of Taiwan from 2005 to 2008. Traveling the globe, Liao is often asked to serve as a peer reviewer, consultant, convener or principal investigator for research projects and symposia pertaining to shrimp, grey mullet, milkfish and cobia.

A grateful heart and a special attachment to shrimp

Dr. Liao modestly ascribes his success in breeding fish and shrimp to being in the right place at the right time among the right people, and with the timely help of fates. Nevertheless, he is very grateful to many people who helped him along the way, including his family, teachers and peers. Together, they persevered to attain their lofty goals in remote, far-flung Tungkang, working together as a close team to achieve the golden reputation Taiwan has won as a shrimp-breeding powerhouse. I Chiu Liao’s research career was built on the larval rearing of shrimp, so he has a special place in his heart for shrimps. He doesn’t like to eat shrimp, he says, just like farmers in the past would not eat beef, since water buffalo plowed their fields and allowed them a living. The saying, “when eating fruits, thank the trees,” reminds us that we

should feel gratitude toward the sources of our foods and drinks.

Setting aside personal benefit and offering realistic recommendations

Success in propagating shrimp and breeding fish is just the first step; what matters is bringing about the sustainable development of the aquaculture industry. Dr. Liao’s recommendation that a limit be set on the number of hatcheries has had no result so far—something which, when he thinks back on it, is regrettable. He feels that Taiwan need not try to compete in terms of volume with overseas shrimp producers. It must plan production and take the high road of quality in order to have the space and resources for optimum operation. “Low grain prices hurt farmers”. If the output of bred shrimp is too high, he feels that “low shrimp prices hurt fishermen”.

Dr. Liao bel ieves t hat Taiwan, which is surrounded by seas, is the most suitable place for aquaculture. He calls on the government to invest in land-based cultivation of fish and fish larvae, which, once they are grown, should be released. The environment should be well protected and quarantine inspections thoroughly done so that the breeding industry does not harm the natural environment and does not upset the natural ecological balance. This will produce the maximum amount of fish and shrimp. He also points out that export distribution channels should be handled well. As of now, the amount of manpower and equipment is insufficient. He notes that Taiwan’s aquaculture industry has stayed running in place in recent years while southeast and northeast Asia have been making advances. He hopes that the government will give greater consideration

to the traditional agriculture and fishing industries, and remarks that, “Taiwan is no longer a simple place ‘where there’s water, there’s fish!’”

As for researchers who are following in his footsteps, Dr. Liao’s first recommendation is that they must be in good health. He cites his example of going seven days without sleep, saying that doing this research is arduous. If you are not in good health, you can’t handle it. Secondly, one’s research should be a bit broader, and every detail most be considered minutely. Thirdly, regardless of what academic subject it is, a solid foundation is a must, especially a “linguistic” foundation. Liao observes that in scientific research, the days of “solo endeavors” are over; young people must learn how to work cooperatively as a team. Also, good friends and a solid network will surely help one’s life of research. However, he doesn’t forget to add, “One must be generous and humble, willing to embrace a simple lifestyle and not be in it for the fame.”

In recent years, Dr. Liao has joined in promoting collaboration between industry and academia to develop bio-products that may overcome White Spot Syndrome Virus of prawns. There are some encouraging progress, e.g. effective control of vertical infection and prevention of horizontal infection. If successful, the recovery of the prawn aquaculture industry is imminent. He has spent his whole life contributing to academic research pertaining to the aquaculture industry. The enthusiasm with which he picks up the telephone and says, “Hi!” is manifold, and he doesn’t forget to remind one to heed the valleys and peaks along the way. I Chiu Liao – an amiable and sincere elder extraordinarily passionate about fish and shrimp aquaculture – is most worthy of being honored with a Presidential Science Prize.


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