Wetpixel’s friends at Inon have let us know that the Japanese Government Tourism Bureau is hosting the Sea of Japan underwater photo contest. Open to images that could only have been shot in Japan; “from photos of species endemic to Japan to the unique views and one-of-a-kind colors that can be found in Japanese waters!” The contest is open now, and the deadline for entries is 15 November.
The BBC reports that Japan has announced that it plans to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) from July 2019 and to resume commercial whaling thereafter. Japan has argued that the IWC was not committed to one of its stated goals; that of supporting sustainable commercial whaling. Japan argues that the eating of whale meat is a cultural tradition, despite the fact that the bulk of the nation only started eating it after World War Two and currently only 0.1% of the population consumes it. (Image credit: wdeon / Shutterstock.com)
Japanese fisherman in the Chiba prefecture caught a rare megamouth shark in their net this past week. The fishermen notified local divers to assist them in freeing the extremely rare fish from their nets and were successful as the megamouth shark swam off “vigorously”. Video of the released shark was captured by Japanese diver Hiroyuki Arakawa.
Japan’s largest coral reef is dying due to rising sea temperatures. Over 90 percent of corals on Japan’s Sekiseishoko reef in the Ryukyu Islands, near Okinawa, have some bleaching and 70 percent of the corals have died overall. The reef was surveyed in November and December by Japan’s Environment ministry. The bleaching is the worst in the recorded history of the reef and is due to rising sea temperatures.
An extremely rare Megamouth shark has been caught off the coast of Japan. The animal was 15-feet long and weighed one ton. It was caught by fishermen 5 kilometers off the coast of central Japan in Owase Port in Mie Prefecture. Only 60 Megamouth sharks have ever been spotted since the species’ discovery in 1976.
In Southwestern Japan, within the Inazumi Underwater Stalactite Cave, Hitoshi Miho lead a team of divers 300 meters farther into the cave than ever before. There they found a large cavern with an air pocket.
The New Age reports that the Japanese government is to reject the CITES agreement to add the oceanic whitetip (Carcharhinus longimanus), smooth hammerhead (Sphyrna zygaena), great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran), scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini) porbeagle sharks (Lamna nasus) to Appendix II. The agreement would limit cross border trade in products that have been made using the animals but Japan is filing a “reservation”, which will allow them to continue as before.