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More Restaurants Give Up Bluefin Tuna

Filed under: Dining

Last November, Greenpeace activists dumped tuna heads in front of French Agriculture ministry calling for a ban of tuna fishing and the protection of the species. This November has seen top French chefs make the pledge to keep bluefin tuna and other threatened fish species off the menu. One of the country's greatest chefs, Olivier Roellinger took bluefin tuna off his menus five years ago. He is the deputy president of the flobal luxury hotel network Relais and Chateaux and 60 percent of its members have agreed to stop serving bluefin tuna. Many French restaurants have agreed to stop serving bluefin tuna.

Bluefin tuna faces the threat of extinction because of zealous overfishing. Over the past few years there has been more and more attention paid to the subject. An international commission met early this month in Brazil and agreed to cut the allowable bluefin tuna catch in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean by 40 percent next year, a move that some said was not enough. Japan remains the biggest consumer of the tuna which is used in sushi and is considered a delicacy.

Greenpeace publishes a "red list" which lists fish that have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries or unsustainable aquaculture operations. To look at what fish you should eat check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's regularly updated Super Green list.

The $100,000 Tuna

Filed under: Dining


It may not look like much but the 282-pound Japanese bluefin tuna shown above brought in more than $100,000 at auction recently. Two sushi bar owners, one in Hong Kong and one in Japan, paid $104,700 for the big fish at a Tokyo fish auction on Monday. The price was about ten times the average price and the highest in nearly a decade. The first sale of the new year traditionally brings hight prices but the prices were even higher because of a shortage of high quality Oma bluefin. There were just three available at the Tsukiji market compared with 41 last year. A smaller imported bluefin caught off the cost of the U.S. sold for $15,400. Members of international tuna conservation organizations have agreed to cut their bluefin catch quota for 2009 by 20 percent to 22,000 tons which could mean more high prices this year.

For a great behind-the-scenes look at the world of tuna sales, I recommend The Sushi Economy by Sasha Issenberg, it's got some fantastic descriptions of the chaos and commerce in Japan's tuna auctions. It also explains that the tuna's tail is sliced off (as shown above) at auction to expose the quality of the flesh.


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