Cormorant fishing
The cormorant fishing is the traditional catch of fish with the help of tame cormorants . This fishing method is still practiced to a small extent in China , Japan , Korea and partly in India and Southeast Asia . The birds dive for fish, which is their normal way of life. Rings or cords on the neck just above the torso prevent them from swallowing larger prey, which they have to leave to their owner.
History and dissemination
The exact origin of the cormorant fishery is unclear. In Macedonia , cormorants (along with other piscivorous diving birds) may have been around since the 5th century BC. Used for fishing on Lake Dojran. However, the method used there was fundamentally different from the techniques that have been demonstrable in China and Japan since the 3rd century. In the rest of Europe, cormorant fishing was only occasionally practiced as a sport by some royal families and nobles. The Japanese Kojiki , which was written around 712, mentions the nocturnal fishing with cormorants. In the Qingyilu of Tao Gu († 970), trained cormorants of Chinese fishermen were described for the first time. The Chinese cormorant fishery became known in Europe in the 14th century through the travelogue of Odorich von Portenau . Here it was practiced from the 16th century onwards as a hunting sport similar to pickling without any economic significance.
The cormorant fishery enables the Hindus and Buddhists , who for religious reasons are predominantly vegetarian, to feed on fish, since these are not killed by humans but by animals.
Ceramic finds from Peru with depictions of fishermen rafting on reeds , carrying birds with cords around their necks, suggest that they were caught with trained birds.
Training and posture
Of all the cormorant species, four are preferred in Asia. These include the Japanese cormorant ( Phalacrocorax capillatus ) and the cormorant ( Phalacrocorax carbo ), which also occurs in Europe . While young cormorants are caught and trained in Japan and earlier also in other countries, in some areas of China there is still a real breeding of birds. However, since the females of breeding cormorants neglect their eggs in captivity, these are hatched by hens . The hatched chicks are raised by hand, where they are fed, among other things, with tofu. At around 100 days of age, both wild-caught and breeding cormorants are trained. The young birds learn the hunting behavior of older animals. Hand-raised cormorants are strongly influenced by their caregiver and are usually allowed to move freely. Wild-caught specimens or specimens bought from breeders are usually prevented from escaping with a string on the leg.
Taming wild-caught birds is arduous and takes seven to eight months with two to three hours a day spent with the birds. They are taught to sit on the edge of the boat or raft, to fish on command, and to get used to the neck ring that prevents them from swallowing their prey. The birds learn to bring the catch to the boat, where the fish is taken from them by the master. The fisherman feeds the cormorant with individual smaller fish, pieces of fish or shrimp. In Japan catches of up to 150 fish per hour have been observed. The cormorants perform at their best between the ages of three and eight years. They are used for work for up to ten years. There are reports that captive cormorants often live two to three times their age in the wild, by the time they are 20 to 30 years old.
Usually several birds, in Japan up to twelve, are deployed from a fishing boat. You need a fixed seating arrangement on the edge of the boat or the perches attached there, otherwise fights over the hierarchy can break out. There are special baskets for two or four animals for transport on land.
Stormy weather and cloudy water are particularly detrimental to the success of the animals being caught. Therefore, they have to be fed by their owners in adverse weather conditions or at times when cormorant fishing is prohibited by the authorities. An adult cormorant needs between 500 and 800 grams of fish per day.
Japan
In Japan, the cormorant fishing is as Ukai ( 鵜飼い ), respectively. It is still practiced mainly as a tourist attraction in various cities. The best known are Gifu and Seki on the Nagara River . The knowledge of fishermen is usually only passed on from one generation to the next within a family. Master fishermen (Japanese 鵜 匠 , usho ) in these places are under the special protection of the Tennō , who previously appointed special officials, as well as the state. Her traditional clothing, which dates back to the Heian period , consists of a black dress, a hat with a chin strap ( 風 折 烏 帽子 , kazaori eboshi ) and a straw apron ( 腰 蓑 , koshi-mino ). On the Nagara, but also on other rivers and lakes in Japan, the Ayu , which is considered a delicacy and therefore expensive, is caught.
Except in daylight, the cormorants in Japan are also used for fishing at night. The fish are attracted by torches or lanterns in the dark.
China
In central, western and southern China, the cormorant fishery is still of minor economic importance, but has been in decline since the 1980s. As in Japan, it is developing into a tourist attraction in many places. Among other things, the Bai minority, who mainly live in Yunnan Province, are known for this fishing method. They still raise cormorants by hand and sell trained animals around six months old to fishermen from other provinces. Prices range from 300 to 1000 yuan . In China too, knowledge of cormorant fishing is kept a secret within the fishing family.
Europe
The cormorant fishing was practiced by nobles as a leisure activity from the middle of the 16th century. The oldest written evidence (from 1555) goes back to a description by Julius Caesar Scaliger from Venice . The English royal court, where tame cormorants can be traced back to 1608, included falconers in the 17th century who were known as Master of Cormorants . A cormorant keeper is mentioned here for the last time in 1689 . The falconer had the birds, which wore a hood before the mission, similar to birds of prey on the fist hunt . As in China, they were also given a neck ring. The birds were caught in the wild and a. from the Isle of Man ( Phalacrocorax carbo carbo ) and from tree breeding colonies near Reedham and Zevenhuizen in the Netherlands ( Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis ). From 1846 to 1890, the cormorant fishery in England was revived by Francis Henry Salvin. He dedicated a chapter to her in the falconry textbook Falconry, its claims, history, and practice from 1859.
The French royal court was supplied with trained cormorants from England from 1609. Around 1625, a Flemish falconer employed at the English court and sent by the king there led the French king Louis XIII. and some other high-ranking figures in the canals of Castle Fontainebleau presented several trained cormorants. The French state almanac mentions a garde des cormorants for the years 1698 and 1736. Cormorant fishing was also carried out here in the 19th century. Further evidence exists for Austria and Holland. Evidence of the Volga from 1912 is available from Russia. Also in Germany, more precisely in Darmstadt in the 1770s and in Ballenstedt at the beginning of the 19th century, trained cormorants were presented at aristocratic courts.
literature
- Marcus Beike: The history of cormorant fishing in Europe . The Bird World 133: 1-21.
- Babet Naefe: The cormorant fishermen from Lake Erhai. A Southwest Chinese economy in transition . In: Michael J. Casimir (Ed.): Cologne Ethnological Contributions . No. 1 . Cologne ( Online [PDF; 6.0 MB ]).
- Otto Gabriel, Andres von Brandt: Fish catching methods of the world . 4th edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005, ISBN 0-85238-280-4 , pp. 34–36 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
Web links
- Jan van Bekkum: China 2005 28 - Fishing with cormorants. (Video) In: YouTube. January 14, 2008, accessed November 3, 2009 .
- Cormorant fisherman , video on YouTube , published June 15, 2009, accessed July 31, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Marcus Beike: The history of the cormorant fishery in Europe . The Bird World 133: 1-21.
- ↑ Fishing with cormorants, a tradition protected by the court and the state. (No longer available online.) Michel BRAS & KAI, 2008, archived from the original on September 12, 2009 ; Retrieved October 16, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The History of UKAI (Cormorant Fishing). Gifu Convention and Visitors Bureau, accessed November 2, 2009 .
- ^ Marcus Beike: The history of cormorant fishing in Europe . Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
