In Yangshuo, cormorants draw tourists hook, line and sinker

YANGSHUO, China -- Quick as a flash, "Crazy" the cormorant dives into the clear, gentle waters of the Li River. Slowly, calm returns to the rippled surface. Seconds drag into minutes.

Then, as suddenly as he left, Crazy surfaces again, proudly clutching a wriggling silvery fish in his beak.

But there is no time to gobble. Matching his bird in agility, Huang Tiancai, Crazy's master, pries the fish from his beak and tosses it along with others into a basket.

Dive, catch a fish, surface, see it taken. Such is the rhythm of life for the carefully trained cormorants of Yangshuo, a quiet riverside town among limestone peaks that jut from the emerald rice paddies of southern China's Guangxi region.

It's precisely their industriousness and unerring fishing skills that make trained cormorants so valuable. For generations, Yangshuo fishermen have relied on the sleek, oily-feathered and foxily fast birds to catch fish in the Li.

Huang's father and grandfather were both cormorant fishermen. He joined the trade at age 18 and for 48 years has known nothing else.

To stop the birds gobbling the fish, Huang ties thin lengths of twine around their necks. The nooses ensure that try as they might -- and they do -- the birds simply cannot swallow big fish.

Together, man and birds set off down the river on a raft of five 20-foot lengths of giant bamboo lashed together. Huang, barefoot and at ease on the unstable structure, poles the raft gently along from the rear.

In front, his four cackling cormorants huddle together, preening feathers with long beaks or stretching wings. When he finds a promising spot, Huang sets a net around the raft, about 30 feet out to hem fish in.

Huang jumps up and down a few times on the raft to break the birds' reverie. They snap to attention and jump into the water.

Huang barks a command and the birds dive. Like arrows, they paddle furiously underwater chasing fish. Occasionally, fish jump from the water, sometimes right over the raft, in their effort to escape.

A minute or two elapses before the cormorants' pointy heads and sleek necks bob up above water.

On a good day, the team catches more than 40 pounds of fish. His wife sells the catch at Yangshuo's morning market.

Some cormorant fishermen are now chasing bigger fish: tourists. Yangshuo's rural charm and scenic beauty attract hordes from around the world, many of whom happily pay for the privilege of seeing the fishermen at work.

But Huang and other fishermen say tour boats, falling water levels and overfishing has caused a decline in fish stocks in the Li. Huang's five children aren't following in his footsteps.

"They work in tourism . . . they don't want to fish," he says. "It's sad but there's nothing I can do."

Catch completed, Huang returns to his houseboat to repair his nets. He slips the nooses from around the birds necks and chooses them some fish. Finally, they eat.