Everyone coming to Niigata for the first time, northern Japan’s koi breeder stronghold, is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of snow! Even Austria and Switzerland rarely sees as much snow as in the prefecture Niigata, situated about 300 km north of Tokyo, though not at the “warm” Pacific but at Japan’s cold west side. The beautiful snow also meant they had to close the airport for a while and we were left with the train for our outward journey.

But since the train can go at about 320 km/h it is not much slower than the plane! A mountain range in the centre of Japan separates the climate of the Pacific from the Sea of Japan side facing Russia, China and Korea. Most koi breeders live in the mountains around Ojiya and have converted former rice terraces into koi ponds. You can already get an idea of the number of ponds when taking a glance at Google Maps air view. A single koi breeder might own up to 900 ponds! A trip to the mountains is impossible or at least extremely challenging without an all-terrain vehicle. During the trip you always meet snow blowers which take care that the road is clear and safe, but cover the front gardens and absolutely everything beside the road in metre-deep snow.

Normally most koi breeders‘ houses are situated along a road and therefore can easily be found. Only a few very large ones were relocated to the flat country after the last large earthquake. Even today the water level at the edge of the pools show how crooked some buildings are since the earthquake. The names of the koi breeders or of the koi farm are mostly written on large billboards outside the halls where the koi hibernate.

Only in the south of Japan can the koi be kept in outdoor facilities (e.g. at the Ogata Koi Farm) during the winter. In the north this is impossible! In the koi halls it is as busy as a fish market: Japanese and non-Japanese nationals alike are running around busily, adjusting fish nets and doing things to the large blue tubs where the “fish gold” swims. A Belgian purchases 5000 koi, which is the total stock of the pool, on the spot. They briefly negotiate the price - and on it goes. I am impressed!

My English friend, who is almost as Japanese as the locals, takes me aside to show me another hall, for which access is forbidden. Here the really precious koi, used for breeding, are swimming around. These koi surpass any other koi I have ever seen. My friend even gets permission for me to take underwater photos of them - of course only after an extensive disinfection of my person and the camera. But I endure it patiently. Who wants to be the one to kill off the financial equivalent of a Formula 1 racing stable by introducing pathogenic bacteria?

© 13.03.2018
Heiko Blessin
Heiko Blessin
Dipl.-Biologe

Tauchen, Fotografie, Aquaristik, Haie, Motorrad

Comments

A word about cookies before we continue

The JBL Homepage also uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: We require technical and functional cookies to ensure that everything works when you visit this website. We also use cookies for marketing purposes. This ensures that we recognise you when you visit our extensive site again, that we can measure the success of our campaigns and that the personalisation cookies allow us to address you individually and directly, adapted to your needs - even outside our website. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not allow (more on this under "Change settings").

The JBL website uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: Technical and functional cookies are absolutely necessary so that everything works when you visit this website. In addition, we use cookies for marketing purposes. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not (more on this under "Change settings").

Our data protection declaration tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. Please confirm the use of all cookies by clicking "Accept" - and you're on your way.

Are you over 16 years old? Then confirm the use of all cookies with "Noticed" and you are ready to go.

Choose your cookie settings

Technical and functional cookies, so that everything works when you visit our website.
Marketing cookies, so that we recognize you on our pages and can measure the success of our campaigns.

PUSH messages from JBL

What are PUSH messages? As part of the W3C standard, web notifications define an API for end-user notifications that are sent to the user's desktop and/or mobile devices via the browser. Notifications appear on the end devices as they are familiar to the end user from apps installed on the device (e.g. emails). Notifications appear on the end user’s device, just like an app (e.g. for emails) installed on the device.

These notifications enable a website operator to contact its users whenever they have a browser open - it doesn’t matter whether the user is currently visiting the website or not.

To be able to send web push notifications, all you need is a website with a web push code installed. This allows brands without apps to take advantage of many of the benefits of push notifications (personalised real-time communications at just the right moment).

Web notifications are part of the W3C standard and define an API for end user notifications. A notification makes it possible to inform the user about an event, such as a new blog post, outside the context of a website.

JBL GmbH & Co. KG provides this service free of charge, and it is easy to activate or deactivate.