Traditional Chinese fishing with cormorants

This partnership between man and animal has been going on for thousands of years. To catch enough fish, Chinese fishermen use cormorants as their assistants, who, in fact, catch it by diving into the water after it.

Cormorant fishing is one of the oldest traditions of fishing in China, Japan, Vietnam. The cunning Chinese came up with a simple solution: a thin ring is put on the neck of the bird. You can breathe, drink and fly freely, but swallowing a large fish - remember, birds don't chew – won't work anymore.

Fishing with a cormorant looks something like this: a fisherman releases a cormorant from a boat into the water, and he, having sailed a little, dives for fish. If the prey is small, the cormorant freely swallows it, if the catch is large, the fisherman calls the bird and takes the fish, giving the bird of prey a small fish in return to encourage it. 

It is curious that after a while the cormorant stops trying to swallow a large fish, immediately bringing it to the owner in its beak.

Cormorants are specially trained and accustomed to the owner-fisherman for several weeks. Birds get used to their new friends surprisingly quickly. They clearly like being taken care of, cared for and fed. After two weeks of training, cormorants, like faithful dogs, eat from the fisherman's hands and are glad of his presence, which is clearly expressed in their behavior.

How do fishermen get the fish that cormorants catch? The secret lies in the ring on the bird's neck. A small fish that is not interesting to the fisherman is easily swallowed, and a large cormorant can no longer swallow. The bird returns to its owner and he pulls the trophy out of its throat.

See also:River monsters – that's the catch,Corey Arnold. Crab, cod and halibut extraction in the Bering Sea,Spearfishing

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Categories: Asia animals nature

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