Japan succeeds in world's 1st complete cultivation of eels+

TOKYO, April 9 Kyodo -
A Japanese government research organization has succeeded in breeding
second-generation cultivated eels for the first time in the world by using
sperm and eggs collected from those artificially raised from eggs, it said
Thursday.
The achievement by the Fisheries Research Agency in Yokohama, Kanagawa
Prefecture, could be the first step toward securing eel resources following a
90 percent plunge in catches over the last 30 years.
The current cultivation system requires catching glass eels, or juvenile eels,
and raising them, but a branch of the research agency succeeded in raising
glass eels from artificially bred larval fish in 2002, also for the first time
in the world.
After these glass eels became 45 to 70 centimeters long, the agency gave them
hormones to stimulate sexual maturation to extract sperm and eggs earlier this
year, and succeeded in getting some 250,000 fertile eggs on March 26 through
artificial insemination.
Some of them hatched the following day and are now growing smoothly having been
fed by the researchers since April 2, according to the organization.
The development of the full cultivation of eels could help protect natural eel
resources since it does not require them, and could also increase the success
rate of artificial breeding by using eels that are more adapted to the
artificial environment, the researchers said.
==Kyodo
2010-04-09 00:42:38


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