Source: Photo.com
According to CCTV, recently, a large number of dead fish washed ashore at Boche Fishing Port in Shima City, Mie Prefecture, Japan, and there were so many dead fish that it was difficult for fishing boats to move.
It is reported that the local government has invested in heavy machinery such as excavators to recover the dead fish. As of December 14, local fishermen had recovered 85 tonnes of rotting fish carcasses.
Local fishermen said it was the first time they had seen so many dead fish floating on the surface of the sea and were worried that more fish would die. Local fishermen are concerned that the frequent occurrence of large numbers of dead fish in the short term could mean that the marine ecosystem is changing.
Japanese officials explained that "the fish may have died from lack of oxygen, and it has nothing to do with the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea."
It is known that the situation occurred for the second time in a week on the coast of Japan. Previously, according to a report by Japanese TV, on the morning of the 7th local time, a large number of sardine carcasses were washed on the beach off the coast of Hakodate City, Hokkaido, Japan. The cause is currently unknown. Local residents in Hokkaido said that it was the first time they had seen so many dead fish washed ashore, and some residents said they wanted to pick up the fish and eat them.
Local officials said in a statement that the dead fish were mainly sardines and that the cause of the deaths of these fish was not yet known. The statement also urged local residents not to take the dead fish home for consumption. A detailed investigation is currently underway and a plan to deal with it will be discussed.
Takashi Fujioka, a researcher at Japan's Hakodate City Fisheries Research Institute, said that the event occurred at the same time as the season when sardines migrated south from Hokkaido. One possible reason is that the fish were chased by a large fish and washed up by the waves after exhaustion, and another possible reason is that the fish were washed ashore in the process of migration, moving with the icy currents, but the exact details are uncertain.
Proportion of fishery production in Japan
Japan's fishery production accounts for about 5% of the total marine fishery production in each representative area, but Japan's nuclear sewage discharge has caused varying degrees of pollution to the entire marine environment and threatened the global marine environment.
Note: The above data is the latest 2020 edition of the State of Fisheries and Aquaculture Report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which is for the whole of 2018, and the data for Japan is adjusted based on the 2019 data released by the Statistical Survey of Fisheries Management of Japan.
Japan's fishing revenues are declining
In 2019, Japan's fishery income was 3.04 trillion yen, down 10.8 percentage points year-on-year, and in 2020, Japan's fishery income fell to 2.97 trillion yen. Nuclear sewage will pollute the marine environment and even fishery resources, and Japan's fishing industry will be the first and most severely affected.
China announced that it has suspended the import of Japanese seafood products since August 24, 2023. According to data from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan's exports of aquatic products to China fell by 65.7% year-on-year in August, with an export value of only 3.6 billion yen.
After Japan's decision to "discharge nuclear wastewater into the sea", the president of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives said that the Japanese government's decision to discharge nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea was "intolerable" and called it an act that trampled on the feelings of the country's workers.
In December 2022, the National Association of Oceanographic Laboratories warned that the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water from Fukushima into the sea would pose a threat to 70% of the world's fishery resources.
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