Issue:
LAST MONTH, NINE JOURNALISTS representing eight countries participated in a press tour to Kaga, a beautiful city in Ishikawa Prefecture, at the invitation of Mayor Riku Miyamoto. The highlight of the tour was sakaami hunting.
The traditional hunting method, which dates from the Edo Period, targets migrating ducks. Some 28 hunters use large, Y-shaped nets to trap ducks leaving a local pond. Under the wetland conservation system, only 200 birds may be caught for shipment to exclusive Japanese and French restaurants.
Mayor Miyamoto said that the area’s style of duck hunting and cooking was a symbol of the Kaga people’s ecological mentality and culinary arts.
— Haruko Watanabe
