On the 14th, the frozen Hwacheoncheon Stream in Hwacheon-gun, Gangwon-do, was filled with people. It was the second weekend of the Ice Country Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival, which resumed for the first time in three years in the aftermath of COVID-19. The venue, which is equivalent to eight soccer fields (61,054㎡), covered Hwacheon's city area for about 1.5km from Hwacheon Bridge.
Closer into the crowd, people were densely seated like black Go stones in the frozen ice fishing area. The previous day's rain collected water and drizzled rain on the ice floor. The ice holes drilled at intervals of two meters, men, women, and children surrounding the holes, were all in perfect order.
"If you stretch the rope to the floor and shake it, you'll catch it." A participant who threw an "eco-friendly fishing rod" advised. Is there a 'green' in fishing? It is eco-friendly because the material of the fishing rod is not lead, said the shopkeeper.
Advice drove people into a movement like a slogan. Sitting, line, young people, and old people began to shake the fishing rod up and down. Everyone was expressionless.
With a scream of surprise and fear, a 30-centimeter-long mountain trout popped out of the ice hole. The mountain trout, whose snout was caught in a bunch of three-pronged needles, was lifted to the chest and thrown back into the ice. "Flapping," the more he struggled, the sharper the needle was embedded deep into the mouth. For so long the sancheoneo struggled.
The mountain trout thrown on the ice slowly and painfully die. Fish that breathe gills suffer severe breathing difficulties when exposed to the air suddenly. Ice makes the suffocation of fish more painful. According to a 2002 paper from the University of Bristol in England, a salmon at room temperature took two and a half minutes to lose consciousness and 11 minutes to completely stop moving. But at 0 degrees, it took nine minutes to lose consciousness and three hours to stop moving. In other words, it is more cruel and dying more slowly.
I'll pay 15,000 won to jump into the water myself. More than 50 people volunteered. He was wearing short-sleeve shorts. The host shouted three cheers. The simple swimming pool was full of knee-high water and mountain trout.
The time limit was 10 minutes, and up to 4 were able to be caught per person. It couldn't have been easy to catch a swimming fish. Most of the participants had to put their hands in the water, so most of the participants were soaked in their upper bodies at the beginning.
I talked to a middle-aged man who remained in the pool until the end and caught three mountain trout. He said he visits the festival almost every year and plays bare-handed at the beginning of the year. "The taste of your hands! The taste of your hands is good." This will help you get lucky."
Jeong Ye-chan, a researcher at the veterinary sociology class at Seoul National University, said, "It cannot be hygienic because many people and fish are mixed in a limited space." There may be fish feces in the water. "If you catch a fish with your bare hands and get hurt by your fins, the possibility of bacterial infection increases," he said.
Hwacheon County rejected requests from 11 animal and environmental groups to eliminate bare-handed catching in 2019, saying there was no legal problem. In 2020, organizations filed a complaint against Hwacheon County Governor and the event's organizer, Nara, for violating the Animal Protection Act, but the prosecution rejected it. The reason was that "fish for edible purposes are not subject to animal protection law protection, and mountain trout were originally farmed for edible purposes."
Lee Ji-yeon, CEO of Animal Liberation Wave, said, "It may be difficult to eliminate the Sancheoneo Ice Festival right away. He said, "We should stop catching wild trout, which causes unnecessary pain, and switch to an animal-friendly festival."
Writer: Grace Jun
(Picture from Unsplash)
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