Ukai: Japan’s Usho Keeps Alive the Ancient Art of Fishing with Cormorants

At night, people on boats enjoy watching the birds catching fish in the water under the light of bonfires

Ukai: a brief history of cormorant fishing

In the pitch-black night, fires burn alongside a river in Gifu, in western Japan, as a handful of men prepare for a ritual that dates back more than a millennium: fishing with cormorants. Dressed in traditional clothes, they look like they come from another time. They wield their cormorants, tied together with strings, like puppeteers.

Their profession, known as Ukai in Japan, was once common in waterside villages and towns throughout Asia and other parts of the world. It has been on a gradual decline for centuries and now lives on in Japan as a tourist attraction and a carefully protected part of the country’s national heritage.

The cormorant fishing technique was brought to Japan from China over 1,300 years ago. Fishers noticed that cormorant birds would catch fish and store them in their throats to bring up later to share with their family or for their own consumption. Thinking that they could help catch river fish like Ayu, fishermen began putting loose strings around the cormorants’ necks. They did it so that small fish were allowed to pass through for the cormorant to feed itself. But the line would trap larger fish in the cormorant’s throat, allowing them to be brought up later for the fisherman.

During the Meiji Period, the system of government changed utterly, and the protective policy of the feudal lords came to an end. Cormorant fishing faced many difficulties. But several years later, in 1890, by order of the Imperial Family, the Emperor named the cormorant fishermen along the nearby Nagara River, Fishermen of the Imperial Agency, making them members of the Imperial Household. Since then, this title has been passed down from parents to children to this day.

The Usho (master fisherman) will bring 8-12 cormorants with them, each with one end of a rope tied loosely around their necks. The other end of the strings is loosely held in the Usho’s left hand. As the cormorants glide across the water, the ropes can become twisted, so the Usho uses their right hand to untangle the cords and make sure each cormorant can move freely. Extreme skill is required so that the ropes tied to the cormorants do not get tangled.

At 46, Shuji Sugiyama is the youngest of the cormorant masters, or Usho, in Gifu. He is one of just nine people to hold an imperial license for the practice. He sits quietly on a rock by the inky water of the Nagara River, apparently undisturbed by the chatter of his fellow fishermen.

“It’s because we live together, the man and the cormorants, that Ukai fishing is possible,” he said.

Now, there are only a few dozen Usho throughout Japan, and just nine of them held imperial licenses at the end of 2018, turning over eight catches a year to the palace and receiving a symbolic salary of 8,000 yen (the U.S. $71) a month.

The method is hardly a commercial enterprise, and the Usho rely on subsidies from local authorities that have turned the profession into a tourist draw and hope to one day see Ukai make the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Japan’s ‘Usho’ keep the cormorant fishing ritual alive

“Cormorant fishing is the biggest tourist draw we have in Gifu city,” local tourism division chief Kazuhiro Tada said. “More than 100,000 people a year come to see it, and their numbers are growing.”

Sugiyama inherited the job from his father, fishing alongside him until he obtained official Usho status in 2002. At the end of the season, Sugiyama will be able to relax a little, but he doesn’t expect to take a holiday anytime soon. “I have a son who is still in primary school. I have the feeling that he has started to be interested in my work,” he said. “He sees me every day with the cormorants, and I hope that one day he’ll take my place.”

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