Japanese museum dedicated to salmon have no live salmon on display this year

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Where there are normally 60, there’s now a whopping zero.

Iyoboya Hall, a museum specializing in Japanese salmon in Niigata Prefecture’s Murakami City, recently announced that they have absolutely no live salmon to display during their traditional live salmon exhibition.

According to the museum website, the abnormally high water temperatures this summer drastically reduced the number of fish caught in Japanese waters this season–with some areas like Hokkaido only bringing in 60 percent of their usual catch. As far as Japanese salmon go, only 1,200 were reported caught this season.

▼ The exhibit is normally thriving, but not this year.

Japanese freshwater salmon prefer water below 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit), so they hang out in the cold Arctic waters during winter. To lay their eggs, though, they need slightly warmer water, and so they swim south to Japan during the summer and autumn months. With both air and water temperatures so high this summer, however, many salmon avoided their usual Japanese routes.

Japanese netizens were both sorrowful and understanding:

“It’s just a part of nature, so you can’t really blame them.”
“Some are calling this summer’s weather unusual, but I think it will soon become the usual.”
“It’s crazy that a museum dedicated to salmon doesn’t have even one [live] salmon on display.”

So unfortunately, no live fish for viewing this year. This will likely affect next year’s exhibition as well, according to the musuem’s announcement. They still have their normal informative exhibitions, and hopefully nature will bless Japan with cooler waters for Japan’s favorite fish next year.

Source: Iyoboya Hall, With News via Yahoo! News Japan, My Game News Flash
Images: Iyoboya Hall
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