🌊 English
Getting to Know the Ariake Sea
This site is run by the Ariake Sea Regeneration Research Association (有明海再生研究会), based in Hamamachi, Kashima City, Saga Prefecture, Japan. Most of the site is written in Japanese for local residents; this page is a short English summary for international visitors.
What we do
Catches from the Ariake Sea have declined compared to the past, and the reasons are not fully understood.
Rather than declaring the sea "dead" or making firm conclusions we cannot support, we record what we
actually observe: daily water temperature, salinity, weather and tide conditions at several points along
the coast, the species we find on the tidal flats, and the growth of Manila clams (アサリ) that we raise
ourselves under three different water conditions. We keep the facts we measure separate from our
interpretations, and we clearly mark anything that is still sample or placeholder data.
BLACK-FACED SPOONBILL
クロツラヘラサギ (Platalea minor)
A wading bird with a distinctive spoon-shaped bill that it sweeps through shallow water to feed. It is an
internationally recognized migratory species of conservation concern, and sightings on the Ariake tidal
flats are uncommon. Size: roughly 74cm in length. This entry is currently marked "under survey" in our
Japanese-language species guide (図鑑) — we have not yet logged enough confirmed sightings to describe its
local pattern in detail.
This page is intentionally limited: a full English translation of every page, species entry, tide chart and
data table is not implemented. If you need specific data (tide records, observation logs, clam-growth data),
the Japanese pages linked from the main menu contain the underlying numbers, and CSV downloads are available
from the observation and clam-research pages for anyone who wants to work with the raw data directly.