![]() ![]() Giant nets called purse seines were introduced to enclose and scoop up entire schools of fish from large sections of the ocean. At-sea freezing technology was also developed, allowing vessels to stay out at sea for longer periods of time and expand their fishing territory. ![]() Fishing fleets began incorporating sonar and radar to detect fish schools, while special buoys, or fish aggregating devices, were used to attract pelagic fish like bluefin tuna. After World War II, there was not only a surge of globalization leading to the high demand for bluefin, but also a surge in new war technology that was redirected towards fishing efforts, ultimately leading to a massive expansion and intensification of global fishing (Blackford 2008). The story of human overexploitation of Atlantic bluefin tuna exemplifies a pivotal moment in marine history. Overfishing is the single biggest threat to Atlantic bluefin tuna today. With declining populations only accelerating the process of extinction, Atlantic bluefin tuna are a species at significantly high risk. For example, Mitsubishi, a company which handles 35-40% of Japan’s imported Atlantic bluefin tuna, has been deep-freezing and stockpiling thousands of tons of bluefin each year, seeking to profit by selling bluefin at extremely steep prices in the future when the bluefin tuna is extinct or near extinction. With Japan consuming approximately 75-80% of the worlds’ catch of bluefin tuna, some major Japanese corporations are prepared to take advantage of this effect (Hamilton et al. Unfortunately, the high monetary value in tandem with the increasing rarity of the bluefin tuna has created an anthropogenic allee effect, where the smaller the population of bluefin, the more valuable the rare tuna becomes and the more heavily exploited they are by humans. One extravagant demonstration of the increasing value of bluefin tuna occurred in 2013, when an owner of a Japanese sushi restaurant chain paid a record $1,763,000 for the first bluefin tuna sold at the renowned Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo (Associated Press 2013). In fact, between 19, fishing for bluefin tuna in the Western Atlantic rose by over 2,000%, while the average price paid to Atlantic fishermen for bluefin exported to Japan increased by 10,000%. Today, sushi is a multibillion dollar industry, and bluefin tuna has grown to have immense market value in the global economy, particularly in Japan. As the popularity of bluefin tuna skyrocketed in the Japanese sushi market, trends in American sushi soon began to follow suit, and by the 1990s, the bluefin tuna was in high demand worldwide (Corson 2008). Japanese planes delivering electronics to the United States began to capitalize on cheap bluefin tuna available in New England to fill up their empty planes on the flight back home, where the tuna was then sold for thousands of dollars. This resulted in an increased demand for bluefin tuna that also happened to coincide with a period of massive globalization. Even as a food product in Japan, bluefin tuna was unpopular due to the unusually red, smelly, and bloody qualities of the meat, which differed greatly from the mild tasting fish typically consumed by the Japanese at the time, mainly white fish and shellfish (Corson 2008).Īfter World War II, a drastic shift occurred in the popularity of tuna as advanced refrigeration technology prevented smelly, red-fleshed fish from spoiling and the Japanese began to acquire a taste for rich, fatty red meat, such as beef, from Americans. At the very height of tuna sport fishing during the mid-1900s, bluefin tuna still sold for only a few pennies a pound in the United States, and carcasses were often ground into cat food, sent to landfills, or dumped back into the sea (Corson 2008). Tuna were initially caught along the Atlantic coast mainly for sport as opposed to consumption. Historically, humans have fished tuna sustainably for centuries: a feat which can primarily be attributed to the relatively low demand and value placed on bluefin tuna. The decline of Atlantic bluefin tuna is the quintessential example of human overexploitation at sea. In this blog post, I hope to not only identify major threats to this species but examine the historical roots of these threats. ![]()
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