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The story
Nikkei reported on an effort to ferment starfish — long treated as a nuisance in the ocean and culled and discarded in huge numbers — into a repellent whose overpowering stench keeps farm pests away. It’s a clever twist: turning waste starfish into a deterrent. On 5ch’s Science News+ board, the discussion mixed worry that the powerful smell might bother neighbors with hope that it could work against bears and wild boar. The thread expanded to cover starfish and sea urchin trivia, as well as opinions that seafood should be put to more use as fertilizer.
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August 26, 2026, 10:00 AM
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
Yoshida Fisheries' Super-Stench Power vs. S.T. Chemical's Deodorizing Power (a parody matchup — 消臭力/"Deodorizing Power" is a real air-freshener brand)
FIGHT!!
Background and key points of discussion
In Japanese coastal waters, starfish have long been culled in large numbers as “pests” that damage fixed fishing nets and aquaculture farms, then disposed of as industrial waste. The idea of fermenting them into a strong-smelling repellent aims to tackle waste reuse and wildlife damage at the same time. Opinion in the thread split between concern that the powerful odor could cause friction with neighbors, and skepticism about real-world effectiveness, since animals like wild boar reportedly get drawn to strong smells rather than repelled by them. Neither point can be verified from the article alone, and no actual field-test data from farms was presented. The suggestion that “seafood should be used more as fertilizer” reflects the fact that Japan relies almost entirely on imports for phosphate rock, though the thread didn’t address the cost challenges involved.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Science News+) thread “Ocean’s nuisance starfish repurposed to repel farm pests — with a stench ‘too strong to measure’.”
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