Is There a Cure for the Bluefin Blues?
Created: Jan 20, 2011Last Updated: Jan 20, 2011
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T
he bluefin tuna is extremely valuable. One fish weighing about 340 kilograms sold for almost $400,000 in Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market in early January. But that’s just the market value—e which, sadly, appears to be the only value taken into account when we consider the bluefin or any other “resource.”The bluefin is economically valuable for a number of reasons. It’s very tasty, prized by sushi lovers the world over, especially in Japan. Sports fishers like them because they are powerful and fast and put up a good fight. Unfortunately, the main reason they are commanding such high prices is that they have become precariously rare.
The bluefin tuna is unusual. Unlike most fish, it is warm-blooded, which allows it to migrate great distances, from the cold waters off Iceland to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean. Their unique colouring—steely blue on top and silvery white on the bottom—camouflages them from predators above and below. They can move at speeds up to 70 kilometres an hour, thanks to their sleek shape and ability to retract their dorsal and pectoral fins. They have large appetites, satisfied by a varied diet consisting of smaller fish, crustaceans, eels, squid, and sometimes even kelp.
In the 1970s, increasing demand and prices led fishing companies to find more efficient ways to harvest bluefin. Stocks, especially of breeding-age fish, have since plummeted by more than 80 percent over the past 40 years. The bluefin is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as “critically endangered.” Although this has led to some conservation efforts, continued legal and illegal fishing of the bluefin is pushing the fish closer to the edge. Last year, Japan led other nations to vote at the United Nations’ Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species against a ban on fishing for bluefin.
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