Photo/Illutration Vessels for salmon and trout fishing are seen on land on April 8 in Nemuro, Hokkaido. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Fishery operators and distributors in Hokkaido are growing antsy over possible delays in opening the fishing season for salmon and trout caused by frayed relations between Japan and Russia.

The two countries have held talks every year on catch quotas and fees paid to Moscow for catching the fish that migrate from Russia.

The season usually opens on April 10.

But this year, the talks started online on April 11, and prospects for an agreement remain murky.

Japan has imposed sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow reacted by listing Japan as an “unfriendly nation.”

“We don’t know what is going to happen, and we cannot just get the ball rolling, either,” said a representative of a Sapporo-based fisheries cooperative. “We just want the government to quickly finalize the negotiations.”

On the day the talks started, about 10 fishing boats were lined up on a dock at the Habomai fishing port in Nemuro, eastern Hokkaido.

In normal years, crew members would already be busy preparing their drift-net fishing vessels and setting out to catch salmon and trout.

But such vessels were on dry land for maintenance on April 11.

The Sapporo-based fishery cooperative represents small fishing operations for salmon and trout in the Pacific Ocean. It said 19 vessels from Hokkaido applied to join this year’s fishing season, down by 12 from the previous year.

Catches of salmon and trout have been poor in recent years, leading to the decline in participants.

However, the fatty chum salmon, known as “tokishirazu,” caught in the fishing season remains a much-prized delicacy that can fetch high prices.

Shinobu Tanaka, a 45-year-old senior managing director of a fish shop called Suzuki Shoten near Nemuro Station, said customers are worried that they will be unable to buy salmon as in the past.

“Like saury in summer, tokishirazu in spring provides a sense of the new season in Nemuro,” Tanaka said.

According to the Fisheries Agency, the Japan-Russia fishery talks started in 1985, and the two countries have always finalized negotiations, usually before April 10.

But a person related to the agency said Russia “may have developed a sudden change of attitude.”

In recent years, Japan and Russia have agreed on an upper catch limit of 2,050 tons.

According to the Hokkaido government, the actual size of the catch in 2021 was 652 tons.

More than 300,000 tons of salmon and trout are distributed within Japan annually, including imported fish.

So the delayed negotiations will have a limited effect on the entire market.

The talks determine the amount of money that Japan pays to Russia, as well as the size of fish catches, to allow Japanese fishing vessels to catch salmon and trout within 200 nautical miles of Japan and Russia.

At the beginning of spring, salmon and trout migrate to these waters, but since they were born in rivers in Russia, Moscow effectively owns the fish.

(This article was written by Masami Ono and Sho Hatsumi.)

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