The price of fish maw ( fish maw ) exported to China has skyrocketed, and fishermen on the Amazon coast are rushing to participate in this gold rush. But people know: this is likely to be another bubble that is about to burst.
The large yellow croaker, which is abundant along the coast of Pará, has been transformed into "gold" due to the trade in fish bladders in recent years. The picture shows fishermen at the Virginia Fishing Port unloading the caught large yellow croaker at the pier.
At the end of October, it is the hottest season in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest city Belem . Just after 7 o'clock in the morning, you will break out in sweat even if you walk a little outdoors. In the city center, Ver-o-Peso, known as one of the largest open-air markets in Latin America, sells a variety of tropical foods; large quantities of catches from the rainforest rivers and nearby seas also arrive before dawn. In the spacious building built in the 19th century, the air is filled with the smell of the fish market accumulated over the years. Under the flamboyant orange colors, rows of fish stalls are ready. The fishmongers skillfully cut off the best fish meat, and then put the fish bones and heads aside for soup, waiting for the customers of the day.
Brazil's sluggish economy and soaring prices in recent years have made ordinary people complain. The state of Pará, where Belem is located, is located in the economically backward Amazon rainforest, and has been even more hit. This is reflected in three meals a day. The price of fish and meat is not low, but it is still better than the excessively expensive meat prices today. Claudio, who has been selling fish for 30 years, has rich experience. He eviscerated four or five fish and cleaned them, leaving the still full swim bladders, which were then neatly displayed. Although many locals do not eat the offal, "guests will know how fresh my fish is when they see the swim bladders."
However, the larger yellow croaker (Suriname Totoaba, locally called "yellow") is more expensive. croaker" (hereinafter referred to as large yellow croaker), but his belly was empty. There is no way, Claudio said, the swim bladder of the large yellow croaker will not appear in the market, "it has been sold long ago!" The meat of the large yellow croaker is sold for 20 Rios per kilogram, and the swim bladder, Claudio said, "is sold for 2,800 Rios per kilogram." - Brazil's minimum wage is only 1,212 Rios per month (today, 1 Rio is equivalent to about 1.14 yuan).
Ver-o-Peso, one of the largest open-air markets in Latin America, sells a variety of tropical foods and large catches from the rainforest rivers and nearby seas.
"Extremely expensive, extremely expensive." The fishmonger sighed. Some of the different types of fish bladders were worthless, and some were worth thousands of gold. He looked up at me across the scale and said, "They are all sold to China."
A few days later, when we followed the clues about the swim bladder trade, we found that the fish bladders were worth several hundred kilometres. When I was in a fishing village outside, a fisherman who was about to unload sardines from the returning boat grabbed me. After confirming that I was from China, he stopped and asked, "What do you do with the swim bladder?" His sardines can only be sold for 2 Leo per kilogram, and they are sold to larger fishing boats as bait to catch large yellow croakers - and the swim bladders in their stomachs. An old woman whose husband and son are still at sea said that her family could not afford a big net to catch large yellow croakers, but she would catch one by chance. She sighed: "It's like digging a mine."
The large yellow croakers are beautiful, It's golden, they all said: "It's like gold in the sea."
The large yellow croaker that abounds along the coast of Para has always been beautiful, but it is only recently that it has turned into "gold" due to the swim bladder trade. In distant China, dried fish maw, known as fish maw or fish maw, is considered to be an ingredient with medical effects. It is highly praised by health consumers based on the type, shape, year or origin of the fish. Fish offal, which can be sold at high prices in China, has become the livelihood of fishermen on this rainforest coast in recent years; although they know very well that, as in the past, this new round of "gold rush" will most likely be unsustainable.
"Gold in the Sea"
Many of the fish arriving at the Belem market come from the fishing port of Vigia in the north. This small city with a population of more than 50,000 is a natural fishing port. Like Belém, it is built along Marajó Bay and is hidden behind a densely planted island in the bay.When setting sail, the fishing boat went north along the calm bay and soon reached the North Atlantic . There, the estuary area created by the intersection of large amounts of fresh water and seawater was rich in productivity; when returning, various winding and narrow waterways allowed the boat to return to the entrance of the fishing village.
The fisherman will remove the swim bladder from the fish on the boat. If the voyage is long and the weather conditions are good, it will be dried on the boat.
In other parts of Brazil, few people know that fish bladders can be a high-priced commodity; and in the coastal state of Pará, which is rich in fish bladders, the export of fish bladders has always been a mystery. "Is it used to make glue or plastic?" But why is it so expensive? "Maybe it is skin care products or cosmetics." Maybe some people like the smell of fish. The fact that one kilogram can now be sold for several thousand yuan makes many conjectures untenable. "Can food be so expensive? Maybe they didn't tell us what the real purpose of the swim bladder is... Could it be made into some amazing parts and used in computers."
There is a book from the 19th century. The Chronicle of the State of Pará records the export of swim bladders. The book contains a passage about Gurijuba (a kind of catfish from which the swim bladders are also extracted today): "In Russia, someone would tear a small piece of the swim bladder into coffee and let the coffee powder settle to the bottom." This is probably the oldest record of the export of swim bladders from the State of Pará. According to records, between 1874 and 1878, more than 30 tons of fish bladders were exported to Britain, the United States or other European countries every year to be made into gelatin, which was used as a clarifier for wine making. According to our interviews and some literature records, fish bladders have been exported to China as early as the beginning of the 20th century; however, in the past decade or so, the export volume and value of fish bladders have been rising steadily.
Fishermen who are more familiar with the market of fish bladders know that sometimes the prices of swim bladders of male and female fish are different - the male ones are more expensive than the female ones. A former fisherman who was seriously ill and unable to return to the sea said with certainty: "Is it an aphrodisiac? Women eat the swim bladder of male fish, and men eat the swim bladder of female fish?" An old fisherman who caught sardines lamented that no matter what the "efficacy" was, "such an expensive thing, no matter how good it is, can't be eaten."
Regardless of its use, the swim bladders that are available on the market have become the hope of fishermen.
This afternoon, in a small village near Vigia, fisherman Elder Júnior’s small wooden boat was sitting quietly in the mud - the tide had gone out. It was hot in the afternoon, and many people in the village were taking a nap. Ed, who was still working, seemed to be in a good mood. The net-mending shuttle in his hand was running quickly, and in front of him was a large pile of fishing nets that needed to be mended. He just returned from the sea a few days ago. On this trip, his small wooden boat, less than 5 meters long, carried 4 fishermen at sea for 10 days. They brought back a total of 40 large yellow croakers, totaling 142 kilograms.
Fishermen take the large yellow croaker they caught onto the boat.
This is a good harvest. Although all the fish meat was sold to just enough to recoup the original cost, the swim bladder in the fish's belly was all profit - in other words, without the income from the swim bladder, Ed would not be able to go to sea. “When my daughters were little, I would make them dolls out of fish bladders,” 37-year-old Ed laughed, but of course not anymore. Since the price of swim bladders began to rise 10 years ago, large yellow croaker has become the main target of fishermen here. "A 5-kilogram large yellow croaker and its fish maw are worth 150 rio. Ten years ago, it was almost 30 rio."
Ed has been fishing since he was 12 years old. The income brought by the swim bladder has given him a lot of confidence in life. His son complained of seasickness when he boarded a boat for the first time when he was more than 10 years old. Ed was also happy, "This way he went to school happily." Although generations of fishermen have been fishing, if given the chance, he does not want the next generation to have to live such a life. However, Ed also said that it is more difficult to go to sea now than in his parents' generation because there are more ships on the sea.
Only big ships have great productivity. When the tide came in the next day, one ship returned to Virginia after being out at sea for more than ten days, and then went to the shore and took out hundreds or thousands of large yellow croakers from the cabin - all of them had been disemboweled and had no swim bladders. On another boat nearby, a large bag of fish bladders of different sizes - which had been dried - was quickly carried to the shore. There was already a small car waiting there, and several people with serious expressions quickly put the goods into the trunk.The person who picked up the goods did not respond to our greeting and walked away.
The invisible boom
Bianca of the Center for Aquatic Ecology and Amazon Fisheries of the Federal University of Pará after hearing about our plans to interview the swim bladder trade Professor Bentes said: "It may be difficult for you to enter this market."
Bianca grew up in Santarém (Santarém), which is close to the Amazon River. It is deeper into the rainforest than Belem, which is close to the sea. She is of Aboriginal and fugitive black descent. She said that she comes from a typical "Amazon family", and most of her family members are engaged in fishing. In 1996, when Bianca had just entered university, she began to study fisheries in coastal areas. At that time, she noticed the trade in fish bladders—the freshwater fish she was more familiar with had no market for swim bladders.
Bianca is not the first expert to tell us that exploring the trade in fish bladders is "sensitive" and "risky". José Nélio Palheta, a Virginia journalist who tried to report on the fish bladder trade in the 1990s, also said that at the time, it was difficult for him to conduct interviews, and no one who bought the fish bladder wanted to say more to him.
A local researcher was interviewed on the condition of anonymity because he was worried that being associated with the fish bladder investigation would affect his work. Although he could not explain in a few words why the topic "became taboo" and only said that it was "related to its huge profits"; another person who requested anonymity did not The consultant who disclosed his work background repeatedly advised us not to show up rashly to inquire about this informal industry. "It's too dangerous," he said. "This is where the federal police should get involved!"
Before reaching the consumer market on the other side of the world, the supply chain of fish maws was not complicated. Remove the fish maw from the fish maw , clean it, and dry it - sometimes the fishermen complete the entire process at sea, and the shipowner sells it to the purchaser, mostly an intermediary, or directly to an export company. The intermediary may handle it several times, and when it reaches the export company, it can be transported to Hong Kong by air or sea.
In other words, a large amount of interest is concentrated on merchants who resell and export fish maws - and they have no intention of letting this booming trade get too much attention, leading to higher taxes, possible robbery and fierce competition.
From time to time there are incidents of theft, robbery and even death caused by fish bladders; middlemen active in various fishing communities often carry large amounts of cash and are even more low-key. During the interview, we heard that some export companies even install bulletproof glass on the cars transporting fish maws. Even so, there are still incidents where Chinese businessmen are targeted by local criminal gangs.
People in the industry kept silent, and outsiders were afraid of touching dangerous topics, so, as Bianca said, "No one asked too much and everyone kept quiet." When Bianca herself first started studying the swim bladder trade, she was directly "warned" that it was best not to get involved.
Because of this background, we were quite surprised: a fish maw export company happily accepted our interview.
surges
Marcius Santos, 46, is quite strong, but his square face still has a childish look, and he looks younger than his actual age. He smiled and explained that eating fish maws can improve his appearance. This local businessman, who said he is a "descendant of fishermen," has been selling fish across Brazil since his early 20s. Since 2018, he has started a fish maw export business with Huang Wei, a Chinese businessman from Jiangmen, Guangdong.
In Bragança, close to the Atlantic Ocean in the northern part of the state of Pará, Huang Wei opened the company's warehouse. Amid the smell of a dried seafood market, fish bladders of various sizes and shapes had been cleaned, dried, packed in hemp bags, and prepared to be flown to Hong Kong. "These small fish maws, only a few centimeters in size, came from the south of Brazil, 10 0 dorio per kilogram, mainly bought in domestic restaurants; those large-looking gourd gums are from Gurijuba, but they are actually very cheap and have no price..."
A small truck opened the compartment, and several large bags of large yellow croaker swim bladders arrived. Huang Wei took two pieces of fish maws that were tens of centimeters long and beat them against each other to see if the fish maws were dried in the sun. "It must be transparent and there must be no grease."The company has quality inspectors who screen the goods one by one according to the Chinese market's requirements for fish maw. Shape or size are important, but the type of fish is the key to pricing. The most expensive is still the large yellow croaker.
"The domestic market is huge, and if there is stock, you will want it. It's a matter of price. "The businessman who has been trading fish bladders in Brazil for 7 years said, "The purchase price was about 1,000 Rio per kilogram when I first arrived, but now it is 3,000 Rio; but the domestic purchase price has always been about the same. "Huang Wei said that today, his profits are no longer what they were back then, and he can only rely on volume.
According to Matthews, there are more than 10 export companies like him and Huang Wei in the state of Pará, and there are even more middlemen active between fishermen and export companies. A man named Ilto Silva's middleman told us that there were at least 50 people in Braganza alone.
Ito lives in Braganza and also buys "green" (that is, not dried) fish maws from surrounding towns, takes them to a farm to wash and dry, and then sells them to export companies. He said that competition in this industry is fierce now, and more Chinese businessmen are coming. “Many people think that the price of fish maw is high and it’s easy to make money,” said the middleman, who was a truck driver. “But only when you get into the industry do you realize that the competition is much fiercer, the classification from China sometimes changes, and the quality requirements are getting stricter. ”
In a small fishing village near Braganza, next to the fish shop, there is a fish bladder purchase point; on the riverbank where fishing boats gather in Vigia, a company that also purchases fish bladders has painted a large yellow croaker on the wall next to it, with the word swim bladder written on it. Like this. More people are entering this business, making this somewhat "hidden" industry somewhat invisible.
Matthews said that in the past, there might have been only a dozen people doing this business, but now there are about four or five hundred people. "The industry has also become more open. "The slowly emerging mobile payment also eliminates the need for many middlemen to move around with large amounts of cash. However, the surge in fishing activities due to swim bladders has also made businessmen like Matthews begin to worry. Rather than hiding this skyrocketing industry, how long the increase can last is more important. Uncertainty.
“No one knows how many kilograms of large yellow croaker we caught,” Matthews said. “All extractive industries in Brazil need to be in order. However, we always extract first and wait for problems to arise before dealing with them. We can never prevent problems in advance. ”
The only data
From the fisheries secretaries of small towns like Vigia and Braganza to the federal government, we cannot get accurate data on Brazilian swim bladder exports. We obtained a response from the Federal Office of Aquaculture and Fisheries through the Freedom of Information Act and said that extracting swim bladders is not an optional description of fishing activities when professional fishermen register, so the government does not have swim bladder products. or the number of fishermen active in the fishing activity; moreover, the swim bladder exports in Brazil’s foreign trade data do not list which fish the swim bladder belongs to, so the species in the market cannot be listed.
“This is a classic tragedy of the commons,” said Professor Bianca. Thirty years ago, she could still find 2.5-meter-long large yellow croakers in the market, but now 1.5 meters is considered large. “This is a typical symptom of overfishing. Besides, we really don’t know much about these fish. "
Taking Gurijuba, which has the earliest record of swim bladder export, as an example, Bianca said that even though the university has tried to study the growth curve of this fish, "but so far we don't even know where Gurijuba spawns." "Zé, a former fisherman who has been fishing for large yellow croaker for many years Raimundo also explained with concern that fishermen do not know how many years it takes for a large yellow croaker to grow to 10 kilograms. It is obvious that the fish is bigger and the swim bladder is more expensive, and it is more profitable to let the fish grow bigger. However, except for fishing continuously, fishermen have no way to control the fish resources
. , so it is impossible to predict the ecological consequences of overfishing.
Fishing activities in order to supply the swim bladders required by the Asian market have caused irreversible ecological crises. Yellow-lipped fish (Chinese) bahaba), also belongs to the family Totoaba. It was listed as a second-level protected animal in China in 1989 and prohibited from domestic trade. It was also listed as a critically endangered species in the IUCN Red List in 2006 due to its continued decline in numbers.
During this period, the totoaba (totoaba) from the Gulf of California, Mexico, was sought after in the swim bladder market, and the unique species of its habitat, the vaquita, suffered a sharp decline in number due to damage caused by the totoaba fishing. According to the Vaquita Recovery Committee, this bathtub-sized cetacean that only lives in the Gulf of California is one of the most endangered marine animals in the world, with less than 10 left today. The totoaba had a catch of more than 2,200 tons in the 1940s, which dropped to 58 tons in 1975, and was therefore included in the IUCN Red List.
Since 2013, after the endangered vaquita was exposed, the international community and media have paid a lot of attention to the fishing of totoaba, and China, the United States, and Mexico have cooperated to launch special law enforcement activities. However, in Mexico, the illegal fishing of totoaba has not stopped, and the sale of swim bladders, which are priced as much as cocaine, has developed into complex and organized criminal groups.
The dried fish maw is called "isin maw", "fish maw" or "fish maw". It is also called "marine ginseng" or one of the "eight delicacies of the sea". It is as famous as bird's nest and shark's fin in traditional Chinese food. However, compared with shark fins and bird's nests, the trade volume and ecological impact of fish bladders have not received enough attention.
Hong Kong, which has a complete import and export data recording system, did not list the trade category of "fish maw and dried" separately until 2015 (it used to be placed under the "dried fish" category), so that the import of fish maw is well-documented. Between 2015 and 2020, Hong Kong’s fish bladder imports reached 20,000 tons, worth HK$14 billion. This quantity is lower than sea cucumber , but the unit price of swim bladder is more than 1.7 times that of sea cucumber; the import volume of swim bladder is 1.4 times that of shark fin, and the unit price is more than twice higher than that of shark fin - the unit price of swim bladder is more expensive than that of shark fin and sea cucumber.
On the Atlantic coast of the northern part of the state of Pará, Brazil, fishermen play in the sea after returning from their voyage.
More than 100 countries export swim bladders to Hong Kong, with Brazil importing the highest volume, exceeding 3,300 tons and worth HK$3 billion. This is roughly consistent with Brazil's export data under the category of "fish by-products", and also means that the vast majority of fish by-products exported from Brazil are dried fish bladders; among them, more than 95% of "fish by-products" come from the state of Pará. The northern state of Amapá also produces a large amount of fish bladders, but most of them are exported through Belém, a large city in the state of Pará.
Assuming that Brazil's "fish by-products" exports are indeed all swim bladders, then in 2020, Brazil's swim bladder exports reached 637 tons, an increase of 398% from 127 tons in 2012 - which means that the amount of fish caught for the purpose of extracting swim bladders is estimated to have increased from 6,712 tons in 2012 to 33,446 tons in 2020. From 2012 to 2018, China was almost the only destination country for Brazilian fish bladder exports; between 2019 and 2020, the number of fish bladders imported by Japan from Brazil increased, but China still accounted for more than 90%.
During this period, people have confidence in both the supply and demand sides: as long as they stay at sea longer, there will be more goods; as long as there are goods, there will be a market in China. As exporter Huang Wei said, coupled with the difficulty in doing business for Chinese businessmen in other Brazilian cities, more businessmen have entered the swim bladder trade in this decade. Bianca believes that the increase in large yellow croaker and swim bladder is related to the decline in the catch of Piramutaba (a kind of catfish) around 2001. "Businessmen who caught catfish began to trade swim bladders." A study published in July 2021 confirmed that in Brazil, the number of fish from which swim bladders can be extracted has expanded from 1 or 2 species to at least 10 species. Among them, only Gurijuba has closed fishing seasons and size restrictions; and although the most important large yellow croaker has been listed as a "vulnerable species" in the IUCN Red List, the risk of extinction has not been assessed in Brazil.
Paulo Amaral, a senior fellow at the Institute of Humanity and Environment of the Amazon (IMAZON) in Belém, believes that fishing is one of the important, untapped and potentially more sustainable sources of income for Amazonian communities than livestock and food. However, without regulation, the future of the fishing industry may also be bleak, Paul lamented, “But there is still a very lack of inspection and control of the fishing industry.”
Distant consumer terminal
Hong Kong is a consumer market and a transit point, and a large amount of fish maws will be smuggled to mainland China. It is not easy to directly export fish maws to mainland China, and various import access qualifications that comply with food safety must be obtained; and Hong Kong will export high-priced goods, including shark fins, swim bladders, etc. that have not been formally quarantined. Cases of smuggling into mainland China occur from time to time.
Fish maw is called "fish maw" or "isin maw" in the consumer market in Hong Kong and mainland China. Compared with the place of origin, the fish maw is sometimes named after its shape (such as egg maw, butterfly maw), and sometimes highlights the type of fish (such as shark maw, yellow fish maw). Sometimes the name of the fish maw has nothing to do with these, such as Beihai gum or zhaojiao may come from more than ten kinds of fish and various origins, most of which come from South America, including the swim bladder product of Brazilian large yellow croaker - sometimes the smaller one is called "yin and yang glue", and the more expensive one is called "Beihai money glue". Sometimes it is considered not as delicate as the meat from Suriname.
The unit price of fish maw is higher than that of shark fin.
At this time, the price of fish maw has sometimes doubled compared to the purchase price in Brazil. In various online stores or seafood markets, there is a dazzling array of fish maws with different functions, sometimes relieving coughs and preventing adverse reactions, sometimes treating stomach problems or kidney deficiency . More emphasis is placed on nourishing the skin, nourishing the fetus, and replenishing blood. The prices are even more different, ranging from tens and hundreds to tens of thousands, and some are even priceless.
In this booming health care market, old and new varieties appear from time to time. The yellow-lipped fish's "Money Gel" still tops various lists (one was sold for more than 3.7 million Hong Kong dollars in 2012); and the rising star "Spider Gel" that appeared not long ago is often said to be "ranked second", with an average of more than 55,000 Hong Kong dollars per kilogram. Many of them come from Vietnam and Indonesia, which has caused one of the fish species to become endangered.
production of fish maw, It is also listed on Hong Kong's list of intangible cultural heritage, saying fish maw is believed to have medicinal properties. Although fish maw has a long and deeply rooted dietary tradition, from the perspective of contemporary medicine, fish maw is rich in animal collagen , which is not easily absorbed by the human body. In recent years, the public has become more aware of the "cruelty" involved in obtaining ingredients such as shark's fins or bird's nests. However, the more common fish maw is sometimes affordable and can be eaten daily, sometimes it is slightly more expensive and is considered a good gift, and sometimes it can be a priceless collectible, but it is not often associated with its possible ecological and environmental impacts. The characteristics of the
fish maw market have made Yvonne, Emeritus Professor of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong Sadovy) thinks of diamonds.
Just like diamonds, Xue Qiwen said that the value of fish maws is also largely affected by "recognized and ideal physical properties, rather than any absolute attributes related to quality" - the "carat, cut, color, clarity" of diamonds, and the "size, thickness, fish species, provenance, shape" of fish maws, all based on the seller's statement and the praise of consumers. The seller's promotion of the product, or the collector's speculation (fish maw can be preserved for a long time and is considered more valuable as it gets older), or even the combination of the supply side and criminal organizations, are also comparable to the diamond market.
"However, if supply is taken into account, this analogy breaks down," Xue Qiwen and other researchers wrote in a study on the international trade of fish maw . "Diamond reserves are abundant underground, but the same cannot be said for fish whose purpose is to extract swim bladders." "
Fish maw, shark's fin, ivory, mahogany , pangolin scales and even donkey skin... These "precious" goods often originate from traditional Chinese culture , diet or pharmacopoeia. With the cooperation of globalization and capital, they have formed one tortuous, fast-growing and far-reaching commodity supply chain. China China is obviously not the only consumer market that asks for precious "materials" from nature, but as more and more consumers are able to obtain the "precious materials" they once had, these demands, which are growing as fast as China's economy, are also affecting the global ecology layer by layer.
Stimulated by high-price demand, unorganized supply brings temporary prosperity, but it often heralds the arrival of a supply crisis.Xue Qiwen said that in the global marine fisheries, she has seen similar stories again and again. "The profit-making methods encountered in times of poverty cannot make them sustainable." Worse still, if fishermen fall into debt in order to achieve greater productivity, they lose their pricing power.
However, this knot does not have to be beaten to death. Xue Qiwen gave an example: If fishermen communities can organize themselves to control the surrounding resources and begin to gain pricing power; if consumers can more clearly understand that if consumption leads to species extinction, no one will win - consumers will also lose the products they desire, so they will make more efforts.
"If we can manage the ocean better, we can get more from the sea." Xue Qiwen said in the interview. But the reality is exactly the opposite.
Captain Sylvia said, "I always have to worry about my grandchildren, because I don't know what they will be like when the time comes."
Everyone is troubled
On the river bank in the center of Vigia, the local government has built a new pavilion with free Wi-Fi. Whether it is fishmongers, fishing equipment, ice makers, resting crew members, fishermen, captains, or drivers or doormen who no longer fish, they all like to stay under the shade of the trees. "I'm telling you, fish are smart now!" a captain named Silvio Sardinha laughed. His boat is a "big boat" in the eyes of Ed, a small fisherman nearby. However, the harvest was not good during the 20 days he went out to sea. "All Chinese people know that the swim bladder of large yellow croaker is expensive, and then we have more and more boats here, and more and more nets, and then the fish are getting smarter and smarter."
Sylvia said that he is a "hired captain". The boat he leads can stay at sea for 20 days and is equipped with a machine imported from the south 10 years ago that can replace the fishermen's nets. There are two real bosses, "one buys fish meat and the other buys fish maws."
Fish bladder is like currency. The two buyers of the large yellow croaker invested in fishing boats and supplies. Sometimes the boat owner would hire a captain to take a group of fishermen to sea, and then directly use the catch to "repay the loan." "What the boss wants is the catch. If one trip is not good, they will wait for the next trip. This is much better than asking for cash in the bank every month," Sylvia said. "While the boat is new and with good luck, it can be paid off within five years." Of course, the value of fish maw and fish meat are not the same.
“In the past, shark fins excited investors,” Sylvia said. When sharks were hunted to extinction more than a decade ago, shark fins were banned, and then “it became the swim bladder.” Until Brazil introduced a shark fishing ban in 2012 (which prohibits the separation of shark fins from the body), the shark fin trade in Pará state also flourished. Later, Brazil also banned the fishing and sale of some species of sharks.
Young fishermen unload the caught large yellow croaker.
For those who live in the Amazon, this is an all too familiar plot. Starting from rubber, waves of "heat" stimulated waves of development and decline. "It's the same as mining, there are more gold nuggets but less gold." Sylvia, who has dark skin and some gray hair on her temples, said that he started fishing when he was 7 years old and is now over 50 years old. The boats around him are bigger, with GPS, ice storage, and some even have sonic positioning, but the maintenance costs are also more expensive. Catching big fish requires a big net, and if there are fewer nearby fish, they have to go to farther seas, which also means that the fuel cost of long voyages is higher. Every time they return to shore, the prices of these materials are rising, which in turn stimulates the pressure on the next voyage.
The tide rose late that day, so there were not many boats returning, and there was not much movement on the river. But Sylvia shook her head and said that during the year-end festival, fleets that have been out to sea for a long time will return home. "The whole river is full of fishing boats, and they can't stop at all." No one knows how many fishing boats there are in Virginia. Sylvia said there are 1,000. On the other hand, a businessman who buys and sells fishing gear said there are about 500.
Fisheries Secretary Diego Cardoso does not know how many fishing boats there are in Virginia, but he said that fishing is the main industry in Virginia. “Without fishery, commercial activities cannot operate, and other economic activities in the city will be affected."And due to the high price of fish maws, Diego said, "Sometimes fish maws are the main fishery product, and fish meat is the by-product. "
A hope of "turning waste into treasure" has gradually turned into an unsolvable knot in the past ten years.
The swim bladder, which brings the main benefits, has attracted buyers from far away. They continue to stimulate more productivity, and the community that relies entirely on fishing for a living is tightly attached to this "lucky" demand; however, they are also better than any other. Everyone knows that fishing capacity can be increased indefinitely, but there is an upper limit to the number of fish in the sea. This is not a warning from outsiders, but a fact that has been witnessed by generations of fishermen. On the river bank, several fishermen pointed out the fish that have disappeared over the years.
“I always have to worry about my grandchildren, because I don’t know what they will be like when the time comes. "Captain," said Sylvia.
Fisherman Elder Júnior) repairs the fishing net that needs to be repaired.
"Dong, dong, dong..."
In the fishing village near Virginia, Ed seems to have everything he needs to know about fishing for generations. There are more ships and more pirates. Good company, and don’t put the newly purchased fishing net in a conspicuous place, otherwise the risk will be too great. Moreover, he said, the tide is wrong these days. “When the moon comes out,” Ed kept repairing the net with the shuttle in his hand, “we can hear the thundering cry of the big yellow croaker. "
"Sometimes you can hear them from the bow of the boat. Otherwise, we go to the bottom of the boat or jump into the water to look for their sounds... It's like a hammer beating, dong, dong, dong..."
During the courtship period of totoaba, fish gather in schools, male fish Sonic muscles cling to the swim bladder—the fastest-contracting muscles known in vertebrates, allowing the swim bladder to rapidly contract and expand—and produce a drum-like sound. The totoaba's English name "croaker" is also named after this iconic sound. ml0If Ed could meet the Hong Kong fishermen from many years ago, they would definitely hit it off. In the 1960s, yellow-lipped fish that gathered in the waters to the west of Hong Kong would make drumming sounds. At noon or midnight, fishermen will put their ears close to the cabin to look for fish. At that time, there were still catches of 40 kilograms, and occasionally even more than 80 kilograms of yellow lip fish appeared.
Ed inquired about me and said, "Don't come here to tell me that China no longer imports fish bladders." He also teased the villagers who had just walked over to mend the nets together, "There was a time before when he heard that China no longer wanted fish bladders, and he almost had a heart attack. "
After the lunch break, the quiet village slowly woke up. Someone pointed to the mangrove forest at the end of the waterway. If the fish bladders were not collected, "You can also go to the mud in the forest to catch crabs..." The locals like to put their whole arms into the mud in the woods, and then pull them out after a few minutes, and they will get a lot of crabs with their arms clamped. But this idea made his companion laugh out loud: "One crab is one rio, one hundred crabs are one hundred rio, can you catch a hundred in a day? Even if they are caught, it won’t be enough to feed the family! "
Everyone shook their heads and said it was okay. There must be other products in the sea.
Text/Medon
