Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Friday the country would oppose any call by the European Union to add eels to an endangered species list that would limit trade.
Eel is eaten worldwide but is particularly popular in Japan, where it is traditionally served grilled after being covered in a sticky-sweet sauce.
Koizumi told reporters that the country carefully manages stock levels of the Japanese eel in cooperation with neighboring China, Taiwan and South Korea.
“There is a sufficient population, and it faces no extinction risk due to international trade,” he said.
Japanese media have reported that the EU could soon propose that all eel species be added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which limits trade of protected animals.
There are 19 species and subspecies of eel, many of them now threatened due to a range of factors including pollution and overfishing.
In 2014, the Japanese eel was listed as endangered, but not critically endangered, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which cited factors including habitat loss, overfishing, pollution and migration barriers.
Protecting the animal is complicated by their complex life cycle, which unfolds over a vast area, and the many unknowns about how they reproduce.
