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There’s no question we love the Atlantic
bluefin tuna (above). The problem is we love it only for its taste.
Flopped out in a Japanese market, the best specimens of the sleek
fish, which grow up to 15 feet long, can fetch $100,000 or more.
A growing hunger for sushi—this isn’t tuna sandwich fare—puts
the giant’s survival in doubt, says Stanford University tuna researcher
Barbara Block. She has
tagged more than a thousand
since 1996, many for
tracking. “We’re at the edge
of a precipice like before the
Atlantic cod collapsed,” she
says. Unlike that crisis, the
bluefin decline comes amid
more knowledge.
Block’s
research shows two populations—one spawning in the Gulf of Mexico and a larger one in the
Mediterranean—that overlap in the middle to forage. She’s concerned
that the international body governing Atlantic bluefin fishing
has not used the wealth of data to impose sustainable limits—perhaps one-fourth of the current 60,000-plus tons landed yearly,
legally and otherwise. Swift action could give the King of Sushi
a fighting chance in its watery domain. —Chris Carroll
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Comments
Jun 22, 2009 11AM #
I don't know why everybody can't just eat shrimp. It's good as tuna. Speaking of it, anybody got a good recipe for a shrimp po' boy sammich?
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