Japan’s Okayama University of Science and Murakami City in Niigata Prefecture, have launched a joint research project to cultivate chum salmon in a land-based aquaculture system using The Third Water at the university’s Next-Generation Aquaculture Center. The juvenile salmon delivered from Murakami earlier this year have grown to an average weight of 23 grams and an average length of 13 centimeters and are now thriving in a 35-ton tank.
Murakami has been known as one of Japan’s leading salmon-producing regions along the Sea of Japan coast since the Heian period (794–1185). In recent years, however, climate change has altered the distribution of marine species, resulting in increased predation on released salmon juveniles by species such as yellowtail and Spanish mackerel that have expanded northward into the region. Consequently, the number of salmon returning to local rivers has declined dramatically.