Ricefish, a 4 cm long fish commonly kept as an ornamental species in Japan, has been utilized by the Shizuoka Prefecture to establish a “fish-based alarm system” as a measure to monitor water contamination, particularly from toxic substances intentionally released by potential terrorists.
This species exhibits abnormal behavior when exposed to pollutants, such as swimming with its snout near the water’s surface due to difficulty breathing, or simply… dying. A project official stated that this “fish alarm system” is highly effective because conventional water filtration systems take up to 15 hours to “detect” contamination, while ricefish can identify it in just 3 hours.
Shizuoka Prefecture began testing ricefish at two water treatment plants in Hamamatsu last year and will soon implement this “alarm system” throughout the entire province.
