Japanese workers have drained a moat around the imperial palace in Tokyo so that they can capture marauding foreign fish that are eating the native species... one of the fish that has become prey for the black bass is the goby, a species that Emperor Akihito, a noted ichthyologist, has been studying for decades.
Black bass are believed to have been introduced to Japan by an American businessman in 1925. It is rumored, but rarely said openly in Japan, that the emperor himself may have been responsible for the introduction of bluegill in 1960.
The bluegill began to appear in the country's lakes soon after then-Crown Prince Akihito returned from a trip to America with some given to him by Mayor Richard J. Daley.
