I love eating high-quality tuna-whether its filleted as sashimi, wrapped in a delicate maki sushi roll, or a seared steak-that fish is delicious!  Its with a heavy heart that I have gradually cut back on eating fish, not only to limit my intake of the mercury that is found in so many large fish, but primarily because populations of bluefin tuna, and many of their kin, are perilously near collapse.  As a former boss and mentor once said to me: "I can't eat fish, they're my clients!" 

Its too bad our clients are so tasty:    

Bluefin tuna can weigh up to 1,500 lbs and live as long as 40 years-they are prized by Japanese and other sushi connoisseurs for their texture and taste.  In the last three decades, the global consumption of fish has doubled since 1973,  causing the fish export trade to quadruple in weight to 30 million tons and to increase ninefold in value to $71 billion.  This mighty demand for fish has brought many of the world's largest predator species to the verge of extinction, with as few as 10% of their original numbers remaining.

With the bluefin in big trouble, environmentalists, scientists, and some nations such as Spain wanted the International Consortium for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)-the organization responsible for looking after tuna in the north-east Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea-to stop the fishing altogether, or at least to limit the total allowable catch of bluefin from these areas to 15,000 tons.  The reaction was furious last week when, instead, ICCAT "agreed to reduce the total allowable catch of bluefin in these areas from 28,500 this year to 22,000 ton[s] next and to 19,950 ton[s] in 2010, to give a total cut over two years of 30%."  ICCAT is being angrily criticized, for good reason, for ignoring its own science.  WWF and Greenpeace announced plans to launch a global boycott of all restaurants and supermarkets that serve or stock bluefin tuna and to  apply to have the species declared endangered under the international Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); "a move that would effectively ban the global trade in bluefin tuna."

The bluefin stock is perilously close to collapse.  If collapse occurs, experience has shown that it may be impossible to bring the fish back from the brink.  A recent troubling report of the collapsed Atlantic cod fishery should compel ICCAT to take stronger action now, rather than deal with irreparable damage later.   The cod fishery collapsed in the early 1990s, and despite 15 years of little to no fishing, the local populations show no signs of rebounding, with some continuing to decrease toward extinction.

As consumers, our demand for bluefin and other fish is the engine driving overfishing.  With ICCAT unwilling to take a strong enough stance to address the problem, we must exercise our consumer power by avoiding eating bluefin, instead selecting species such as wild Alaskan Salmon, or those featured in the Blue Ocean Institute Guides to Ocean Friendly Seafood or Sushi.