TOKYO, Dec 1 \u2014 Oysters in Japan are dying en masse in parts of the country\u2019s top production area, likely due to warmer sea temperatures, officials said Monday.<\/p>\n
In some coastal areas surrounding the Seto Inland Sea in western Japan\u2014an area that accounts for more than three quarters of Japan\u2019s farmed oyster production\u2014around 90 per cent of cultivated oysters are dead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never experienced this in my whole career,\u201d Tatsuya Morio, who has farmed oysters for more than 20 years, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Shoichi Yokouchi, an official in the Hiroshima area, which borders the Seto Inland Sea, said he suspected \u201chigh water temperatures, together with other factors, are the culprit of oysters dying en masse\u201d.<\/p>\n
This year average water temperatures along Hiroshima\u2019s coast from July to October\u2014an important period for oyster cultivation\u2014were 1.5-1.9\u00b0C higher than the 1991-2020 average, according to prefecture data.<\/p>\n
Sea temperatures are rising globally due to climate change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf higher temperatures remain for a few weeks, that weakens oysters and makes them more susceptible to viruses and bacteria,\u201d said Yokouchi, head of the marine products division.<\/p>\n
The mortality rate of harvested oysters is typically 30-50 per cent.<\/p>\n
But interviews conducted by the fisheries agency in mid-November revealed rates of 60-90 per cent in the central-eastern part of Hiroshima Prefecture, and normal to slightly elevated rates in the rest of western part, the ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries (MAFF) said last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cLittle rain in July this year, in addition to high water temperatures, led to a rise in salt concentration, damaging oysters,\u201d said Shinichiro Toi, an official in charge of marine product technology research.<\/p>\n
A MAFF official told AFP: \u201cWe are investigating the cause of the oyster deaths together with local governments\u201d.<\/p>\n
Farmer Morio told local broadcaster Hiroshima Home Television that even oysters thought to be more resilient to higher temperatures had been hit.<\/p>\n
And in nearby Hyogo prefecture, oyster farmer Daiki Takeuchi said those that had survived \u201chad grown poorly\u201d.<\/p>\n
They are \u201cabout half the size of the average,\u201d the 33-year-old told AFP. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to sell them to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, oysters off the Sanriku coast in northern Japan, which account for about 17 per cent of the country\u2019s farmed oyster production, do not seem to be affected, the MAFF said.<\/p>\n
The rate of ocean warming has more than doubled since 1993, according to the UN\u2019s IPCC climate expert panel.<\/p>\n
Average sea surface temperatures reached new records in 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand are among the main importers of Japanese oysters. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO, Dec 1 \u2014 Oysters in Japan are dying en masse in parts of the country\u2019s top production…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[110351,273,110350,110347,111,139,69,110352,147,110349,110348],"class_list":{"0":"post-170669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate-change-effect","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-hiroshima-prefecture","11":"tag-japan-oyster-deaths","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-oyster-cultivation-challenges","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-seto-inland-sea","18":"tag-warmer-sea-temperatures"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}