S. Korea Salmon Fest Highlights Dwindling Fish Populati

James Card in Yangyang, South Korea
for National Geographic News

November 3, 2006

At the sound of a whistle, participants armed with hand nets, work gloves, or simply their bare hands charged into the ankle-deep water along South Korea's Namdae River.

Their goal: to snatch the hundreds of chum salmon caught at sea and stuffed into a 50-yard (45.7-meter) netted stretch of the waterway for the annual Yangyang Salmon Festival, held this year on October 21 and 22.

The fish scattered as people splashed into the river, but the animals couldn't go far, held in pools by long blue nets.

Eventually each salmon was caught, brought to the gravelly banks, and dumped into plastic shopping bags bearing the official festival logo.

"I can't catch one," cried a small girl who was having a hard time. So three volunteers wrestled a salmon into her arms and gave her another leftover fish for good measure.

In Yangyang, near the northeastern city of Sokcho (South Korea map), festivalgoers pay the equivalent of U.S. $20 to take part in the fishing frenzy, and tickets sell out fast.

Choi Jin-hwa, a Yangyang county official, says 1,900 tickets were sold this year.

But for those who miss the fishing, the festival also offers a salmon race, where competitors team up with a salmon and try to coax their fishy partner across the finish line.

In tents along the riverbank, K-pop—South Korean pop music—blares from loudspeakers for a hip-hop dance contest.

Hungry visitors can buy fresh, dried, or fried salmon. Those who catch their own can have vendors fillet and wrap the fish. Or it can be left whole and used to make an ink print on rice paper—a 2-D trophy.

Crashing Numbers

This unusual festival was started in 1996 to honor the migration of the chum salmon, the only species known to spawn in the Namdae.

Fish born in the river swim downstream to the salt waters of the North Pacific. They spend three to five years in the ocean, then make a difficult journey back upriver to spawn.

(Related video: "Salmon Brave Bears in Alaska Summer Spawn.")

The exact dates of the festival are different each year depending on the start of the salmon migration. Events usually take place in late October or early November.

Yet in the midst of what amounts to a yearly party celebrating wild salmon, few people realize that the guests of honor are becoming increasingly rare in this region.

During the first Yangyang Salmon Festival, the number of salmon returning to the river peaked at over 200,000. But in 2000 the numbers crashed to 17,000.

(Related news: "Seafood May Be Gone by 2048, Study Says" [November 2, 2006].)

Reasons for the low return rate in 2000 are not clear, but experts say declining habitat could be a major factor.

A hundred yards (91 meters) from the festival grounds a new bridge is under construction, and the work creates a quagmire of silted water and mud.

Such development also affects water temperatures, which in turn affects the fish.

"Salmon need cold water," said Nam Kyoung-sook of Green Korea, one of the country's leading environmental organizations.

"On the Namdae the water temperature has increased because of road-building, which leads to deforestation and then siltation, and that means the salmon won't return."

What's more, the treeless riverbanks are lined with cement blocks and are devoid of wetland buffer zones that would naturally filter out silt and pollutants entering the river due to human activities.

Farther upstream numerous weirs and dams are in place to help prevent floods.

While these structures do have concrete fish passages, a prolonged drought earlier this autumn lowered the water levels to a mere trickle.

Chum salmon are the weakest leapers of Pacific salmon and can be easily halted by such obstacles, according to the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Helping Hands

But at least one building downstream of the festival grounds is part of a dedicated effort to boost salmon numbers in the Namdae.

The Salmon Research Center of the East Sea Fisheries Research Institute in Yangyang forms an artificial embankment on the river.

The barrier funnels salmon into the river's main channel, which is blocked with netting and leads to the edge of the hatchery grounds, where the fish are captured.

Here the dorsal fins of hundreds of salmon cut the water's surface like those of tiny cruising sharks.

The center's main mission is to catch adult chum salmon and strip their eggs and sperm for artificial reproduction.

"So far we have caught 600 salmon, and we have been netting them since October 11 and will continue until November 30," said Lee Chae-sung, head of the Salmon Research Center.

"Our goal is to catch 9,500 salmon for broodstock."

The center releases smolts—salmon about two years old that are ready to migrate out to sea—each March into the Namdae and 17 streams around the country.

According to Lee, "artificial fertilization gives better chances for reproduction."

Nam, of Green Korea, said that the program "is a realistic choice, but for now it is more important to protect the salmon habitat. If that isn't healthy, the salmon won't survive."

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