As people in Japan treated themselves to grilled eel on a traditional eel-eating day Friday, many had to dish out more cash amid soaring prices for the endangered delicacy.
The domestic catch of juvenile eels for cultivation dropped this season to the second-lowest level since records began being kept in 1982, leading to a rise in the wholesale price of grown eels by about 30 percent from a year ago.
On what is traditionally referred to as the Day of the Ox, which falls twice this year, on Friday and Aug. 1, many people in Japan eat eel, typically grilled with sweet soy sauce, to honor an old saying which promotes the consumption of the fish to help the body withstand the summer heat.