"Seafood Sashimi May Be Hard to Find for a While": 30,000 Fish Die-Off in Boiling Seas Leaves Fish Farms in Distress [On the Scene]

Flounder Death Rate Hits 40% in Boiling Seas: Defenseless Against High Water Temperatures

Full Compensation for Livestock, But Fisheries Face "Penalty Premium" Bomb

"Insured Fishermen Face Reverse Discrimination" as Frustration Grows Over In

A flounder farm in Wando-gun, Jeollanam-do. Dead flounder, belly-up on the surface, are being hauled up from the water nonstop.

This is a scene where the so-called “high water temperature disaster” has become a reality due to a sharp rise in seawater temperature caused by an ongoing heatwave. Although fishermen who have suffered significant financial damage are making urgent appeals, there are growing concerns that the government’s disaster relief system for the fisheries industry is still stuck in a legal blind spot.

A flounder farm in Wando-gun, Jeollanam-do. Due to the heatwave, the seawater temperature far exceeded the flounder's growth limit, turning the entire farm into a large field of carcasses. Photo by Lee Jungkyung

The Sea Far Exceeds Optimal Temperature... Deaths Surge Due to Oxygen Shortage

The damage site at the Wando fish farm, which reporters visited on August 2, was at a critical level. At Mr. A’s farm, over 30,000 out of the approximately 70,000 stocked flounder had died, with the damage rate exceeding 40 percent.

The optimal water temperature for flounder growth is 20 to 25 degrees Celsius, but the current temperature at this farm hovers between 27 and 28 degrees. Surface water temperatures in nearby southern coastal areas and Jeju have also soared to around 29 degrees. For fish, a 1-degree increase in water temperature causes stress equivalent to a 10-degree or greater change felt by land animals.

Mr. B, a staff member met at the site, sighed as he showed a freezer warehouse filled with dead flounder. Mr. A, the owner, said, "Flounder are originally a species that live attached to the tank floor, but when the water temperature rises, they jump up to the surface due to a lack of oxygen and die the next day. For fishermen, this is an extreme situation where we have no way to intervene."

This year, the period of high water temperatures arrived exceptionally early due to the effects of climate change. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries recently raised the high-temperature crisis alert to “Serious I” and put the emergency response headquarters into operation, with surface temperatures already observed to exceed seasonal norms in major sea areas nationwide since early July.

Mr. A, the owner of a fish farm in Wando, raised his voice, saying, "More than 30,000 fish, accounting for over 40% of the total stocked quantity, died, resulting in losses worth hundreds of millions of won in an instant." Provided by the company

Diverging Fortunes for Livestock and Fisheries: Structural Contradictions Lead to Reverse Discrimination

Coverage reveals that the biggest complaint from fishermen on the ground is the lack of policy parity with other primary industries. Currently, the livestock industry is recognized as a national disaster in cases of deadly diseases like African Swine Fever (ASF), and a direct compensation system from the government is operated, such as culling compensation, to prevent the spread.

Fishermen unanimously say, "A climate disaster like high water temperature, which is an uncontrollable force of nature, shakes the foundation of the industry no less than an epidemic, yet fisheries receive no comparable direct government support."

Even for identical heatwave disasters, agriculture and livestock industries are protected by multi-layered safety nets including livestock disaster insurance’s heatwave riders, disaster recovery funds from local governments, and facility support to withstand high temperatures. In contrast, high temperature damage impacting the aquaculture sector falls solely on the “Aquaculture Disaster Insurance” system, which operates under an unfair structure.

The biggest loophole in the current aquaculture disaster insurance system is the “reverse discrimination” built into the structure, which penalizes those who diligently pay for coverage. While farms not enrolled in insurance can receive up to 50 million won in government disaster aid in the event of a disaster, those who paid out of pocket for insurance coverage are completely excluded from support.

Not only are fishermen burdened with non-refundable premiums amounting to tens of millions of won each year, but those forced to claim insurance payouts face significantly increased “surcharge premiums” the following year. This is why people on site vent that “the more you insure, the worse off you are.” Mr. A stressed the need for policy improvement, saying, “Despite this being a natural disaster at the level of a national emergency, there is absolutely no direct financial support from the government.”

Inside a frozen warehouse in Wando County. Tens of thousands of deceased flatfish are stacked layer upon layer from the floor to the ceiling. Photo by Lee Jung-kyung

On this day, National Assemblyman Park Ji-won, Wando County governor Kim Shin, and County Council Chair Choi Jeong-uk visited the scene to assess the situation, but so far, Wando-gun is providing only partial support for “dead fish collection and disposal costs,” and no fundamental measures have been announced at the inter-governmental level.

Mass Deaths Disrupting the Supply Chain... Growing Concerns Over Soaring Raw Fish Prices

This chain of mass deaths in Wando’s fish farms is expected to lead not only to losses for individual farmers but also to an increase in seafood prices in the second half of the year. Wando-gun is the country’s largest production area for flounder, accounting for roughly 37 percent of national flounder output, with 192 farms currently operating there.

Major farmed fish species such as flounder and rockfish require at least a year of cultivation from fry to shipment. Because of this structural characteristic, where supply cannot be restored quickly, large-scale deaths inevitably result in soaring wholesale prices. In fact, after last year’s high water temperature event, the farm price of rockfish jumped by more than 50 percent year-on-year.

With the climate crisis becoming the new normal, high water temperature damage has become a recurring annual disaster. Voices are growing in aquaculture for the urgent establishment of a national direct compensation system equivalent to that for livestock disease, as well as for improvements to the flawed insurance policy. There is an urgent call for practical "fisheries policies to respond to the climate crisis."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.