Abstract
The Japanese nation has a long history of using freshwater eels as food, and these days up to ~100,000 t of eels per year are consumed there, about 70 % of the world’s eel consumption (Kuroki and Tsukamoto 2012). In this context, there is no doubt that Japanese have a closer relationship with eels than any other nation in the world, and therefore need to take a heavy responsibility for their conservation.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all the people who provided materials, artefacts, and information about the Japanese eel for this chapter, and gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Nico Korenhof (Naturalis) for scanning the originals of Keiga’s watercolours and Bürger’s description. We also thank Andrew Driver for his help in improving the English.
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Kuroki, M., van Oijen, M.J.P., Tsukamoto, K. (2014). Eels and the Japanese: An Inseparable, Long-Standing Relationship. In: Tsukamoto, K., Kuroki, M. (eds) Eels and Humans. Humanity and the Sea. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54529-3_6
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