Fantasy in Real Life: China’s Winged Fishermen
Imagine a scene from an alternate reality or a fantasy novel: early morning, dense fog drifting over the dark water of an Asian river. On the bow of a wooden junk stands a man in a straw hat. In his hands are not a fishing rod or a net, but several long bamboo poles. To the base of each pole, a live bird with coal-black plumage and piercing green eyes is tied by a thin leather loop. This is a great cormorant. At its owner’s command, dozens of birds silently slide into the water. A few minutes later, they emerge one by one, sputtering heavily, swim back to the boat, throw back their heads, and the fisherman personally removes the catch straight from their throats.
This method of making a living is known as cormorant fishing. The main tool of this trade is the great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) — a large waterbird from the order of pelican-like birds. Evolution has perfectly adapted it for underwater pursuit. Its feathers lack the water-repellent oil layer that ducks have. When they get wet, they become heavy, allowing the bird to dive easily and relieving it of excess buoyancy underwater. Powerful webbed feet work like oars, and a long S-shaped spine gives the body incredible flexibility, turning the cormorant into a
swift living torpedo. The eyesight of these birds is adapted for clear
vision of objects in a distorting aquatic environment.
The main secret of successful hunting lies not in training, but in the bird’s unique anatomy and a simple leather accessory. Cormorants have an extremely expandable throat pouch (crop), where the catch is stored. In addition, their esophagus can expand to truly gigantic sizes, allowing whole fish to pass through. The bird is physiologically capable of swallowing prey weighing up to one and a half kilograms.
To turn a voracious predator into a reliable partner, fishermen use a special leather ring. It is placed snugly around the lower part of the bird’s neck, preventing it from swallowing large fish, while still leaving enough room for water and small prey to pass through, which is necessary to sustain the hunter itself. The ring works like a kind of biological valve. The cormorant eagerly chases and catches fish instinctively, enjoying the process, but physically cannot keep them for itself. At the same time, the bird still manages to push small fish through the narrow ring and eat them as a well-deserved bonus.
In one outing, an experienced cormorant can catch from three to ten large carp or catfish. Returning to the boat, it waits while its owner carefully holds its head with one hand and with the other reaches deep into the elastic crop and pulls out the trembling fish. After that, the bird’s throat is ready for work again.
To an outside observer, this method may seem cruel. However, field studies by ethologists show a paradoxical picture. Cormorants that work with fishermen live significantly longer than their wild relatives. Humans provide them with protection from natural enemies, quality food in the off-season, and veterinary care. Mortality among “working” birds is much lower than in the wild, where juveniles die en masse from hunger and predators.
Today, traditional commercial fishing with cormorants is rapidly disappearing. It cannot compete with modern fishing trawlers using kilometer-long nets. The labor-intensive process of training the birds is no longer financially worthwhile.
However, the ancient practice is experiencing a renaissance in a completely different role — as cultural heritage. Today it is more of a theater on water for tourists, a carefully preserved piece of intangible folklore. In Guilin, China, or in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, this practice is supported at the state level as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Fishermen-performers go out on the river in the evening, lighting antique kerosene lamps on the sides of their boats to create atmosphere, and the small trout caught during the show are immediately fried for the audience’s dinner.
