On 5/6/2012 8:55 PM, gtr wrote:
> On 2012-05-07 00:15:28 +0000, George said:
>
>> When I went to Japan it was a natural to eat them there. From what I
>> understand the American eel is nearly wiped out. According to this
>> article it is because of Japanese consumption:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/op...k.html?_r=2&hp
>
> I've seen another article more recently about eel shortages but again,
> I'm not sure it relates to the kind of Japanese broiled eel with a sweet
> sauce we usually think of.

The American eel is very similar to the Japanese fresh water eel (unagi).

The interesting part is that the writer claimed the young eels were
being caught at the mouth of rivers and then taken to China to be farm
raised. If you do that long enough it isn't hard to see how you could
wipe out the eel population in rivers.