I really like grilled eel (kabayaki). I’ve heard
the number of eels obtained in Japan is decreasing. So, I’m so happy if completely
artificial eel cultivation comes true. To my pleasure, I’ve heard news about it.
It said it would be an important step to the realization of my hope.
A team including the Japan Agency for
Marine-Earth Science and Technology has found that freshly-hatched eel larvae eat
dead plankton, called “marine snow,” to grow, which was published Wednesday in the
U.K. biological journal Biology Letters online.
This is a key result to realize a complete culture
of eels.
There are some hypotheses about food of eel
larvae which are one centimeter long and look like a transparent leaf: gelatin-like
substance produced by sea squirt, tiny jelly fish, in addition to marine snow, but
details remain unknown.
The team analyzed the amount of nitrogen contained
in amino acids in the digestive tube, and calculated a figure of “trophic level”
showing which level in the food chain the specimen is at. The trophic level found
in an analysis with nine larvae of the Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica, obtained in an egg-laying site off the Mariana Islands
was 2.4, comparable to oysters and crabs.
Unagi (eel)... that is one of my favorites. I strongly believe that cultivating eels is something the Japanese government has to work on hard. Otherwise, countries such as the U.S., which call for stoppage of fishing eels, will demand Japan to reduce the number of shirasu unagi (young eels). We must do something about it, now.
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