Affectionately nicknamed "Shark Brother" by those around him, Wu Zu-Xiang has been one of Taiwan's most active advocates for ocean issues in recent years. From launching a petition to ban shark fin trading, to championing the cause of Penghu's Southern Four Islands, he went even further in 2018 by taking direct action — founding the Penghu Southern Four Islands Conservation Association. Every step of this selfless journey has been driven not only by a desire to draw more public attention to ocean issues, but also by a silent protest against the bureaucratic inertia of Taiwan's government.
Shark Brother's Diving Story
With 24 years of diving experience under his belt, Wu took a path into the sport quite unlike most people's. Rather than earning a certification through a formal course, he served in the Navy, where he held the position of rescue chief aboard a naval salvage vessel, working alongside an elite team of underwater operators — professional divers drawn from the Navy's rescue and salvage unit. At that time, he had not yet entered the water himself; his days were spent patrolling Taiwan's maritime boundaries aboard naval vessels, and his impression of the ocean was limited to the deep blue of the sea's surface.
After learning to dive, he discovered just how beautiful the underwater world truly is.
By chance, he eventually underwent dive training with the Navy's rescue and salvage unit, and from that moment on, he fell deeply in love with the sport. Diving information in Taiwan in those early days was scarce and hard to come by. Although he received thorough practical skills training in the military, it was a dive instructor from abroad who helped him fill in the gaps in his theoretical knowledge. Over his many years of dive travel, he also witnessed a scene that left him deeply saddened: during a dive trip to Green Island's Gunshui Bi to observe Hammerhead Sharks, a dive buddy on the same boat passed away after surfacing and climbing back aboard. Despite his own extensive rescue experience, the tragedy brought home the fragility of human life against the vastness of the ocean.
Reflecting on 24 years of dive travel, he spoke with a heavy heart about the gradual decline of Taiwan's marine resources. Visiting the dive site at Gunshui Bi on Green Island to see Hammerhead Sharks had long been one of his regular itineraries, yet since 2000, sightings have dwindled from around 50 individuals to far fewer — and in recent years, it has become possible to complete an entire dive without spotting a single Hammerhead Shark. In Kenting on Taiwan's main island, outside of the marine protected area, the diversity and abundance of underwater life is also severely depleted.
I hope I can do my small part to make a difference. I really don't want a future where diving in Taiwan means you can only photograph things that don't move and can't be eaten — even though Taiwan is surrounded by the sea on all sides, having to travel overseas and pay good money just to see marine life would be a tremendous loss.
An Unbreakable Bond with Sharks
His first step was to focus on the charismatic species that divers most love to encounter — sharks. It began simply, through a Facebook group, reaching out to friends and family with the message that small personal choices could reduce shark mortality. That changed when the then-head of the Environmental Protection Administration attended a shark fin banquet hosted by an industry sponsor, making him realise that staying within the Facebook community would never be enough to meaningfully advance the cause. He therefore launched his first-ever online petition on Taiwan's Public Policy Network Participation Platform, calling to "Ban shark fin trading! Impose heavy penalties on 'finning'! Stop the killing!" Before the deadline closed, he had successfully gathered 5,163 co-signatures, opening a door to face-to-face dialogue with the government — though what followed only deepened his frustration.
The petition gave him the opportunity to convene a collaborative meeting with government agencies, and made him acutely aware of the urgent need to establish an association.
On the Public Policy Network Participation Platform, once a petition clears the signature threshold, the relevant government bodies are required to convene a collaborative meeting with the petitioner and stakeholders to discuss the issue together. But at those meetings, Wu came to fully understand how the government's fragmented, multi-agency approach to ocean affairs — combined with a deeply entrenched bureaucratic mindset — was the final nail in the coffin for Taiwan's marine environment. Divers, for instance, have long called on the government to follow international conventions and add certain species to the list of protected animals banned from capture — among them manta rays and Hammerhead Sharks — yet the government invariably deflects with the excuse that "there is insufficient scientific survey data," leaving the problem perpetually unresolved.
The same dynamics played out during Shark Brother's second petition: "Designate the Dongxi Corridor Sea Area of Penghu Southern Four Islands National Park as a Complete No-Take Zone." This time he gathered 6,157 co-signatures, and the government again convened a collaborative meeting. Yet at that meeting, a curious cast of stakeholders appeared — including the Penghu Inshore Fisheries Association, village representatives, fishermen's associations, sea fishing clubs, and the Penghu Diving Association — groups that largely held opposing views to his own. Without any organisational backing, his voice was easily drowned out whenever the meeting called for statements or votes. It was after this experience that Shark Brother resolved to support the cause of Penghu's Southern Four Islands through more concrete action, throwing himself into the work of establishing the Penghu Southern Four Islands Conservation Association.
Conservation voices are small and easily ignored. The next time the government sits down to discuss policy, it will be the same old faces in the room making the same old decisions. We need to build an organisation — to bring together people who share the same values — so that when the government undertakes a comprehensive policy review in the future, we can participate in drafting that policy from the very beginning, under the banner of a formally recognised association.
Why did Shark Brother choose Penghu as the site of his long-term campaign? It all traces back to 2017, when he dived in Penghu Southern Four Islands National Park for the first time. Over those three days, he was profoundly moved — he described seeing more fish in that single trip than in an entire year of diving across mainland Taiwan combined. It was almost inconceivable that such an underwater abundance could still be found anywhere in Taiwan. Yet this tiny patch of sea was being defended on the front lines by only a handful of individuals, and lacked meaningful support. That realisation planted a seed in his heart.
The beauty of Penghu moved Shark Brother to dedicate even more of himself to protecting this sea.
During the Penghu collaborative meetings, he also came to fully appreciate just how difficult it is to advance ocean issues. When conservationists tried to explain the concepts of source populations and spillover effects, other stakeholders were focused entirely on the economic value of the catch. When the question of whether fishing should be permitted within national park boundaries arose, it exposed a tangle of conflicting central and local legislation and fragmented jurisdictional authority over marine affairs — leaving different stakeholders free to cherry-pick whichever legal interpretation best served their interests. This left enforcement agencies rudderless, and denied the already-deteriorating underwater ecosystem any breathing room.
On 22 April 1990, footage documenting Penghu fishermen hunting and slaughtering dolphins was broadcast from the United States to the world. The graphic images shocked global audiences, and the fishing community of Sha-Gang in Penghu suddenly found itself at the centre of worldwide condemnation. Four months after the dolphin-killing incident came to light, international pressure mounted from every direction, and under the weight of global conservation advocacy, Taiwan formally enacted legislation classifying cetaceans as protected wildlife — marking the beginning of Taiwan's marine conservation journey. Then on 21 May 2018, a livestreamed video of a manta ray incident in Penghu shocked the public. The very next day, Huang Hong-Yan, Director-General of the Council of Agriculture's Fisheries Agency, swiftly announced that because manta rays are frequently caught as bycatch, the Fisheries Agency would issue a public notice under the Fisheries Act prohibiting fishermen from catching manta rays — ahead of their formal listing as protected wildlife under the Ocean Affairs Council — with the earliest implementation date set for August of that year. Taiwan prides itself on being an ocean nation, yet not only are its citizens deeply disconnected from the sea, but both the government and the scientific community lack an ocean-centred mindset. Perhaps what we need is not more keyboard warriors online, but more people like Shark Brother — individuals willing to translate their convictions into real-world action for the ocean. Would you like to join him?
Extended Links:
