中国·福州——热爱城市从热爱美食开始

On the evening of June 21, CCTV’s Eastern Horizon program aired a report on fishermen in Bili Township, Luoyuan County, harvesting abalones late into the night.

In Jibi Village, Bili Township, fishermen start harvesting abalones every evening around 7 or 8 p.m., working late into the night. They pull the cultivation cages from the water and, using specialized tools, carefully remove the abalones clinging to the cage walls. After sorting, weighing, and packing, the abalones are placed in baskets, transported to the dock for packaging, and then sent overnight to the processing plant.

Why are abalones harvested at night? “Because the temperature is slightly lower at night, abalones are more active, which leads to better meat quality,” explained a farmer.

It is known that during the hot summer months, when seawater temperatures reach around 25°C, abalones enter a dormancy phase. During this time, they eat less, their metabolism slows, and they stop growing. If the temperature exceeds 29°C, the mortality rate of abalones increases significantly. As a result, fishermen must harvest abalones that meet the required size before the peak of summer heat arrives. Abalones that haven’t yet reached full size are then shipped north by boat to escape the heat. They will return south to continue growing once the seawater temperature drops in October.

“To prevent a price drop caused by an oversupply in the market, Luoyuan County has introduced a new abalone processing line this year. This line freezes freshly harvested abalones in just 10 seconds using liquid nitrogen, allowing them to be released to the market at a later time, thus ensuring higher earnings for the fishermen,” said a leader from the local abalone association. (Fuzhou Evening News Reporter: Liu Lu; Correspondents: Wu Chunfeng, Wang Dehui, and Huang Haoyu)