Erhai Lake is a beautiful highland lake in Dali, Yunnan Province. As it is shaped like an ear, local people call it Erhai, or "Ear-shaped Sea". The lake is an important food source for the local people, who are famous for fishing by cormorant rather than nets. The traditional fishing method is handed down over the generations.

Cormorant has been an important cultural and historical symbol of Bai Nationality in Xizhousha Village of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture.

At the edge of Erhai Lake, a tradition of cormorant fishing has been perpetuated by the villagers for decades.

Cormorant is a distinctive kind of bird featured with talent of catching fish under water. They are good at diving, yet their hooked beaks are long and sharp, and their keen eyesight enables them to find preys in ten meters.

The life expectancy of a cormorant ranges from 15 to 20 years in normal. A young cormorant has to be trained for at least 6 months before growing into an adept fish hunter.

The tradition has seen ups and downs over its inheritance

Villagers there used to live on fishing. As the most practical and popular way of fishing, cormorant fishing had seen a sustained boom in the village before the 1980s.

At the end of the 1990s, local government launched several restrictions on fishing in Erhai Lake. From 2006, Erhai Lake ban fishing in the lake to protect the ecological environment of the lake, resulting the downturn in cormorant fishing.

Besides, high cost is another reason for the lessening. According to Yang Yufan(杨玉藩), a 50-year-old cormorant fisherman, the cost for raising a cormorant is about 10 yuan per day.

Yang has witnessed the downturn of cormorant fishing. In his memory, more than 70 households raised cormorants in the late of the 1990s, but only 4 households are still raising cormorants now.

"There were 1,500 cormorants in Xizhou Town in the 1990s. Up to the year of 2005, only 180 cormorants were left." said Yang.

Tourist development alters an alternative way for reserving cormorant fishing

Cormorant fishing performance was officially presented to tourists in July of 2006.

According to Yang, hundreds of tourists visit the village to watch the performance every day. Sometimes, the number even mounts up to around one thousand. By now, over 2 million tourists from home and abroad have been attracted ever since the year of 2008.

With the growing reputation, cormorant fishing was listed as a Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009.

Cormorant fishing performance not only protects the cultural intangible heritage from extinction, but also makes the virtual unknown Xizhousha Village a renowned tourist destination.

"Cormorant fishing in Erhai has become a tourism card for Dali now." said You Fan(又凡), an official of Dali Tourism Development Management Committee.

Cormorant fishing in Erhai Lake is a window to the past.

Let's follow Zhang Wan to take a closer look. 

This is a song 62-year-old fisherman Yang Yuegan who sings dozens of times a day as part of his cormorant fishing show in Erhai Lake. He says he has been raising cormorants since he was 20-years-old. Though cormorant fishing once was a successful industry in its own right, its primary use today is to serve the tourism industry.

"Cormorants and their owners rely on each other. Several generations of my family made their living cormorant fishing. These cormorants rely on me to feed them, and I rely on them to earn money for me."

Cormorants are able to dive underwater and stay there for a long time. While it is underwater, it searches for fish. The bird then catches the fish and returns to the surface. After that, the cormorant spits the fist back up on the deck of the boat.

"Cormorants bite the eyes of the fish directly, so the fish gets no chance to escape. To prevent the birds from swallowing the fish it catches, you have to tie a string near the base of the bird's throat so that they can hold the fish without swallowing it."

Yang Yuegan says he has 33 cormorants, all of which are well tamed. Usually, a female cormorant can only catch prey of about 1.5 kilograms, but males can hold 14 kilograms or more.

"Only cormorants that can stay within one or two kilometers of their owners are good, but those that stand beside their owners are not that good. Previously, I had two good cormorants who could catch very big fish by staying beneath the water for six or seven minutes. But only one or two in a dozen are this good."

When it comes to fishing, Yang says winter is best because the fish are slower in winter time, and the water is much clearer, making it easier for the cormorants to spot the fish.

Yang says cormorants are very smart. Just 100 days after they are born, they can start to learn how to catch fish. However, among the dozens of new born cormorants, only a few of them can survive.

"Although the cormorants reproduce every year, the rate of survival is pretty low. Out of 100 newborn cormorants last year, only nine of them survived."

Apart from the low rate of survival, the cost of raising cormorants is comparatively high. Yang says the total cost of the fish for cormorants is as high as 1,600 yuan a month.

As far as Yang Yuegan knows, the grandfather of his grandfather started to make a living with cormorant fishing. He says raising cormorants is a skill that has been passed down from generation to generation in his family.

Yang Yuegan has two daughters and one son. He says he wishes to pass down his cormorant fishing skills to his children, but they are not really that interested in such hard work. But Yang insists that cormorant fishing be kept by his family.

"Cormorant fishing can not be wiped out, the skill should be kept from generation to generation. This is something precious' it's the intangible cultural heritage of our country."

When it's sunset, Yang Yuegan bids farewell to the last tour group of the day and finishes his cormorant fishing show in Erhai Lake. He says he must rush back to take a look at other cormorants onshore, as two female cormorants are laying eggs.