On Monday, a single 380-pound bluefin tuna sold for about $37,500 in the first auction of the year at the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. That's far below the peak price of $1.76 million that a bluefin went for at the same market in 2013, and this year's price isn't a good indicator of the supply, or population status. But it is a reminder of the unrelenting hunger and willingness to pay top dollar for the fatty pink flesh of this swiftly disappearing wild fish.
The 2015 inaugural bluefin is bound for a popular restaurant chain in Japan called Sushi-Zanmai, according to wire reports. Japan consumes 80 percent of the world's bluefin, and international conservation groups say that demand from the Asian sushi and sashimi industry is mainly to blame for the rapid decline in bluefin populations in recent decades.
In November, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List moved Pacific bluefin tuna from "least concern" to "vulnerable," which means that the fish is now threatened with extinction. It joins the southern bluefin, which is "critically endangered" — the third, and most threatened IUCN designation — and the Atlantic bluefin, which is "endangered," the second level. In all cases, overfishing is making it nearly impossible for the spawning stock to rebuild the population.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: NPR
