>From: Christopher Scharpf <ichthos_at_charm.net>
>Reply-To: nanfa_at_aquaria.net
>To: NANFA Mailing List <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
>Subject: NANFA-- bass & bluegills in Japan
>Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 16:35:41 -0400
>
>Just received this fascinating email from John Bondhus. It was written by
>his
>daughter, who lives in Japan.
>
>
>
>Remember how I told you about how the largemouth bass and bluegill are
>taking over Japanese waterways and pushing hundreds of species of
>indigenous Japanese fishes to extinction? They had something on TV
>about his today.
>
>As I mentioned before, Japan has stringent laws against moving these
>fish into other lakes and rivers, but bass fishermen ignore the laws and
>continue moving them around from one body of water to another. Now
>they've spread all over the country. The show interfered bass haters
>and bass lovers.
>
>Obviously some people move them around because they want to go bass
>fishing closer to their homes or cabins. However, one bass enthusiast
>that was interviewed offered another view on bass stocking. He compared
>bass fishers to golfers by saying that golfers get tired of always
>golfing the same course, and bass fishers get tired of always fishing
>the same lake. I can't help but think that people who move the bass
>around for this reason are even worse than than those who move them
>around for their own personal convenience. He seemed to think there was
>nothing wrong with this. BTW, he admits to illegally stocking bass in
>other Japanese waterways for this very reason and seemed to think there
>was nothing wrong with it. Of course, it's not like he'll get arrested
>for it. His mom is Japanese, but his dad is American and he lives in
>the United States now, so there's really nothing the Japanese government
>could do about it. I suppose that even if he visited Japan and got
>arrested for it during his visit, he'd go to the US press and Americans
>all over the country would be pissed off at Japan for arresting an
>American for stocking lakes with bass.
>
>Commercial fisherman as well as Japanese native fish lovers hate bass
>and bluegill. Obviously the native fish lovers hate them because
>they're pushing many native species to extinction. Commercial fisherman
>hate them because they're severely reducing the numbers of edible
>species that make up their livelihood. Many of the fisherman
>interviewed complained that their nets were filled with nothing but
>bluegill and a few bass.
>
>The Japanese don't eat bass or bluegill. However, I did see a show a
>few weeks ago about a bunch of people that were trying to tackle the
>bluegill problem by finding ways to stimulate bluegill consumption.
>They experimented with various recipes in an attempt to make the fish
>appealing to the Japanese palate, like fish paste and sashimi (raw
>bluegill! that's scary!). Most weren't very successful, but a couple
>restaurants did find some recipes for the fish that might help promote
>their use as a food fish.
>
>Bass fishing has become very popular in Japan in recent years. Even
>some irresponsible TV shows are promoting it by depicting popular
>celebrities bass fishing. Bass fishing clothes (the clothes guys you
>see on fishing shows) is becoming quite stylish. The media makes bass
>fishing look "cool" and "trendy". The show I saw today referred to this
>saying that this was a prime example of how the Japanese love to imitate
>Americans. The Japanese look at bass fishing the way Americans look at
>French culture. It's chic.
>
>Another thing that's stimulating the popularity of bass fishing in Japan
>is that it's being portrayed as "nature-friendly" because of the "catch
>and release" policy of bass fishers. In the US, the idea is usually to
>release fish that are too small to cook or not worth mounting. Do US
>bass fishers release big bass too? Japanese bass fishers release all
>the fish they catch. They do that to be kind to nature. This gives
>bass fishing an "environmental" image in Japan.
>
>I remember how you said that members of the bass family present a
>problem to any ecosystem they're not native to. I also remember hearing
>that (I don't know if I heard it from you or read it in a book) they
>were originally native only to a certain area of North America and were
>spread around the continent by bass fisherman, and disrupted many North
>American ecoystems the same way. Of course, that was so long ago that
>now people think they're native to the whole of North America. That was
>an opinion mentioned on the show. They said that Japan and North
>America were different because the fish is not indigenous to Japan, but
>it is native all over the U.S. They also said that the bass population
>is also in trouble in North America because of decreasing populations.
>Well, I suppose they got these ideas because the show interviewed
>several American bass enthusiasts, but didn't interview any
>ichthyologists or anyone from an government or non-government
>organization like NANFA that cares about nongame fish. (Of course, they
>probably didn't know that they should. They did interview Japanese
>ichthyologists regarding the bass problem in Japan. I thought it was a
>pretty well produced program.)
>
>Unfortunately, the government has been unable to control illegal bass
>stocking in Japanese waterways. The bass fisherman catch the fish, put
>them in a beer cooler, and move them to the waterway of their choice.
>Some have even solicited commercial fisherman to sell them the bass they
>catch in their nets ("preferably fingerlings") because they "have a
>small pond near my house that I'd like to stock bass in." (Naturally,
>the fisherman refuse.)
>
>Now that they've taken over so many lakes, commercial fisherman and
>local government bodies responsible for lake management have taken new
>steps to try to rid their lakes of the pests.
>
>I've heard of Americans using chemical poisons and even electricution to
>rid waterways of exotic species like carp, but these processes also hurt
>the indigenous species of fish and other aquatic lifeforms. The
>Japanese government would never go for this. For one thing, many of the
>waterways that have become overrun by bass and bluegill are home to many
>rare and endangered species of fish and other lifeforms. Japan's
>largest lake, Lake Biwa, is home to several species of fish that are
>exclusive to Lake Biwa and can be found nowhere else in the world.
>(What I mean is, nowhere else in Japan either.) Moreover, the Japanese
>government is concerned not only with fish species, but also other
>lifeforms such as plants and underwater insects. Could these all be
>restocked after a waterway is poisoned to remove bass and bluegill?
>What about lifeforms that are still undiscovered in a lake the size of
>Lake Biwa?
>
>As I mentioned above, some people are trying to promote bluegill
>consumption as a way of counteracting their population growth. (I
>haven't heard of anyone trying to do this for bass though, which are
>also considered inedible by the Japanese.)
>
>However, the most popular and only effective method being undertaken is
>to simply throw the fish away. Commercial fisherman simply dispose of
>the mass quanties of bluegill and bass they catch in their nets.
>(Despite offers from bass enthusiasts to buy them.) At some lakes,
>plastic trashcans have been set up near the lake with signs reading "for
>exotic species" for responsible recreational fisherman to throw away
>their bass and bluegill. I don't know how successful this is
>considering the "catch and release" policy of Japanese bass fishers.
>Especially when you consider that most Japanese aren't aware of the bass
>problem in the first place.
>
>Bluegill are considered junk fish in Japan, just like Americans see
>carp. However, the largemouth bass have plenty of supporters to protect
>them. It's not just Japanese bass enthusiasts either. I remember when
>somebody reproduced an article from an American newspaper called "Japan
>Goes Bassin'" in the NANFA mailing list. The person who wrote the
>original article supported bass fishing in Japan and tried to make it
>look like the Japanese government was bad for trying to outlaw the
>fish. I don't have to tell you what NANFA people thought of that
>article. If memory serves me correctly, I believe some people talked
>about writing a letter to the newspaper to complain. Bass lovers in
>Japan (both Japanese and the American writer of that article) seem to
>think the poor largemouth bass are being persecuted because of "greedy"
>commercial fisherman and people who like "pretty fish". What they
>intentionally ignore is the fact that Japanese nature lovers and the
>Japanese government are trying to protect the less popular species of
>endangered native fishes as well. Let's face it, most of the seriously
>endangered species are the unpopular fishes that are not raised in
>aquariums or stocked in other waterways.
>
>In the past bass enthusiasts worked to promote the popularity of the
>largemouth bass and practiced civil disobedience by illegally stocking
>Japanese aquatic ecosystems with their beloved bass. Recently they've
>crossed the line to terrorism. According to the program, bass lovers
>are now sending out anonymous letters threatening to destroy the fishing
>nets of any commercial fishermen who discard of the bass caught in their
>nets instead of releasing them back into the lakes.
>
>BTW, I once told you that when someone talks about "black bass" in Japan
>they're talking about the largemouth bass. This is because the
>largemouth bass was the only black bass in Japan. However, at the end
>of the program they mentioned that recently a few smallmouth bass have
>been spotted in Japan. Considering how fast bass proliferate, they must
>have been smuggled into the country fairly recently.
>
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/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
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/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org