Japan, Others Agree to Start Experts’ Meeting on Eel Stock

June 10, 2018

Tokyo- Japan, South Korea and Taiwan agreed on Friday to start a meeting of researchers in Tokyo in September to examine the Japanese eel stock, in order to provide scientific grounds for fishing controls.

The trio also agreed to maintain the current quotas on the annual amount of glass eels to be farm-raised, including 21.7 tons for Japan.

The agreements were reached at a two-day international conference on the management of the eel stock in the Japanese capital through the day.

China, which was absent as in the previous year, is expected to accept the continuation of the quotas.

Japan plans to ask China to participate in the forthcoming experts' meeting. "Without China, which has the largest quota of 36 tons now, any measures would be useless," a senior Fisheries Agency official said.

Full-fledged fishing controls for the endangered fish have not been implemented yet, as the ecology of the fish has not been understood enough.

Due to poor catches, the amount of glass eels put into farming ponds in Japan this season was 14 tons, the second-lowest level on record since 2006.

Adult eel prices were around 5,300 yen per kilogram on Friday, about 1.5 times higher than a year before, according to the Union of Eel Farmers Cooperatives of Japan. Jiji Press