Japan's fishing industry faces challenges as sea water gets hotter

Kawai and Iyoda remove a metal net used to protect their clams from predators as sea temperatures rise in Maisaka. — Photos: STEPHANIE YANG/Los Angeles Times/TNS

EVERY year, when July draws to a close, Norio Terada and his fellow oyster farmers submerge hundreds of scallop shells strung on wire rings into the waters of Lake Hamana.

The tiny black larvae that attach to the shells will be harvested from the salty lagoon in about 18 months as full-grown oysters. But first they have to survive an increasingly hostile marine environment that in recent years has withered production and rattled fishermen around the country.