Cormorant Fishing: Pros and Cons; Exploding Snakes

Okay, so this post will have very little to do with Okinawa in particular, except that I became aware of this subject while wandering through Best Denki and saw a game show that featured it.

Cormorant Fishing is an ancient art that is still practiced in Japan. The master trains the birds to live with people, wear a "leash" of sorts, catch and throw-up large fish for the master fisherman. Pretty cool.

But, while reading today's edition of The Japan Times online I came across a great English-based blog "The Blog from Another Dimension" and a posting entitled "Cormorant 0, Fish 1" here and learned that instincts ain't all that great. (SPOILER WARNING: obviously, from the title, the bird doesn't get the fish; better still, the bird dies trying to eat the fish! You gotta see it to believe it.)

And then, at the bottom of that page, in the comments section, a link to an article posted by the BBC wherein pythons, not indigenous to Florida, are just as avaricious as the above cormorants. The snake ate an alligator, and exploded. Here.