Plagued by delicacies - 26th July 2021

A plague of rare oysters at a major Olympic water sport venue in Tokyo has cost an eye-watering $1.28 million in emergency repairs.

Sea Forest Waterway, located in Tokyo Bay, houses the main Olympic watercourse, which plays host to the canoeing and rowing championships at the Tokyo Olympics.

Officials were in the process of putting the final touches to the venue ahead of the Games when they happened upon an unexpected conundrum - submerged floats.

Floats installed to break the waves produced by competing vessels had been colonised and weighed down by a rare variety of oysters. The mysterious sinking of floats sent officials investigating, when they came across the vast populations of oyster colonies, well established on the buoyant features.

The arduous task of ridding the floats of this infestation has proved especially tedious with the Games speedily approaching. Equipment spanning over 5.6 kilometres in Tokyo Bay had to be hauled ashore for repair and carefully scrutinised whilst some needed to be scoured in place by divers. The undertaking yielded 14 tonnes of the rare Japanese oysters.

These weren't your average shellfish but rather magaki oysters, a delicacy and a culinary hit with locals particularly in winter. Unfortunately, the teams were prevented from capitalising on their massive seafood catch due to safety concerns.

"We did not consider consuming them," one member told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, saying "that would entail safety checks."

The divers may regret this missed opportunity since, although prices around the world might vary for these magaki oysters, this catch could have easily been sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

Although Sea Forest Waterway, the sole international standard rowing course in the whole country, boasts a budget of about $1.5 million per annum for general upkeep post-Olympics, this may not prove sufficient. The area around Tokyo Bay has a high saline content, which provides prime conditions for thriving populations of these magaki oysters.

However, with this already bulging purse for the facility's maintenance after the Games, local authorities had better come up with a watertight, long-term plan for their expensive oyster crisis.