On first glance, the Japanese Cormorant (Phalacrocorax capillatus) may seem like any other cormorant. It’s a black and white bird, catches fish, hangs out on rocks where it dries its wings. Rather a common cormorant you might say. Well, once again, you would be wrong.
In Japan, people have long used cormorants as a means to catch fish. Of course, in order to get your cormorant to catch and fish and not eat it you need to place a snare around the base its throat. This prevents them from swallowing large fish, while allowing them to hold it in their crop. When a bird has caught a fish, the handler will pull the bird back to the boat, where the Cormorant then spits it up.
This mode of fishing has been practiced for over a thousand years. On the Nagara River in Japan locals have fished with cormorants for at least 1,300 years. The Japanese taken it very seriously. The fishermen have the official title “Cormorant Fishermen of the Imperial Household Agency” which is proper fancy. Apprentices train for ten years before they can be considered a master. The Cormorants are tethered to a boat on a long line of rope, allowing them enough slack to hunt without risk of escape. They hunt at night and light a large fire off the front of the boat, which helps attract fish, and provides light for the birds to hunt.
One Cormorant fishing was a vital industry, responsible for feeding thousands of people, but these days the tradition lives on as a tourist attraction. In one sense this is positive as the animals are no longer exploited to the extent they were. But in another sense, it has acted to further separate us from the natural world. The practice of Cormorant fishing was a relationship between the master, the birds and the river. You had to understand the habits of the bird to catch the fish. But now the process is industrialized, the role of the Cormorant is largely forgotten, and our understanding and appreciation of the bird diminished. Please pardon the philosophical musings.
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15/12/2022
Bird of the Week 