Yuchi Township fishers have appealed to the Nantou County Government for help in dealing with an invasive fish species in Sun Moon Lake, where it has devastated the local ecosystem.

Fishers at Sun Moon Lake have been using electrofishing in an attempt to eliminate the giant snakehead fish — found in Africa and Southeast Asia — but they have struggled to keep up with the growing population of the species, which breeds during September and October, the county government said on Monday.

The county has contacted researchers at National Tsing Hua University, saying it hoped they could come up with a more ecologically friendly and efficient plan to tackle the invasive species, which has been feeding off the lake’s indigenous marine life.

Many other invasive species have found their way into Sun Moon Lake in the past few years, including piranhas, gymnochanda (a species of Asiatic glassfish) and the red devil cichlid, it said, adding that the snakehead is especially destructive to the local ecosystem.

“To get rid of snakeheads and their eggs in an ecologically friendly way we are going to use giant mottled eels. They will eat the fish and eggs,” it said.

So far, the fishers have captured about 5,000 snakeheads through three electrofishing attempts, it said.

“We worked with the county and tracked down the areas around the lake where the snakehead fish amass, and found the main area to be around Syuan Guang Temple,” Nantou County Department of Agriculture Director Chen Jui-ching said.

People planning to take part in the annual Sun Moon Lake swimming event on Sunday need not be worried about getting bitten by snakeheads, as the fish are afraid of people and would not come around the large group of swimmers, the county government said.

The county told a news conference on Friday last week that 1,998 teams comprising 21,828 people had signed up for this year’s event.

The participants include 195 foreign nationals living in Taiwan and 171 people with disabilities, it said.

When not swimming, participants will have to wear masks as part of pandemic response measures, it said.

Those failing to comply could be subject to fines of between NT$3,000 and NT$15,000, it said.