Get Imperiled Bluefin Tuna Out Of Nobu's Sushi
Atlantic bluefin tuna are one of the mightiest fish in the ocean. They are thousand-pound silver bullets capable of accelerating faster than a Porsche and maintaining swimming speeds upwards of 40 miles an hour. They can navigate across thousands of miles and are one of the only warm-blooded fish ever to swim through the seas. But all of these adaptations do little to protect them from our insatiable appetite.
The growing demand for high-end sushi and the utter failure of management has driven more than 70 percent declines in the Eastern Atlantic bluefin population and more than 80 percent declines in the Western stock over the past few decades.
The high price bluefin fetch is a huge driver of these unsustainable practices. In 2001, one tuna sold for nearly 200 G's. Known as "otoro" to sushi fans, bluefin ranks as one of the most valuable wildlife products on the market, rivaling elephant tusks and rhino horns. But unlike elephants and rhinos, bluefin have failed to receive international protection, most recently just this March. Why? Because for some reason, we don't tend to think of fish as "wildlife." (The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife is a case in point), even though an international trade ban could help wonders. About 80 percent winds up in sushi in Japan; If we stop the trade, we would kill the market and save the fish.
But it's not only Japan's appetites to blame. The expensive sushi restaurant Nobu, with its flagship location in New York City and others around the country and world, still serves bluefin to its extremely high-end diners. Nobu tries to pass the buck of responsibility to its customers by printing an “unsustainable” warning, but it’s Nobu that buys the fish from the dealers, ultimately promoting the trade.
As long as people continue to pay big money for a little slice of fish, fishermen will keep fishing, the industry will keep trading, and the Atlantic bluefin will march ever-closer to extinction.
Nobu’s excuse? The restaurant argues that bluefin is part of a cultural heritage of sushi, and it cannot simply stop serving it. Trouble is, that’s not true. According to the book, The Story of Sushi, “Originally, fish with red flesh were looked down on in Japan as a low-class food, and white fish were much preferred." The tuna's red meat also tended to spoil more readily, so people avoided it before refrigeration was available. Even more damning is the fact that bluefin is a relatively new addition to the Nobu menu.
A recent article in New York Times Magazine reveals many details of the bluefin's plight, whose mightiest members fell long ago on harpoons, and more recently, upon endless miles of hooks. Now, the remaining juveniles are herded towards the coast, where entire schools are penned, fattened and slaughtered—not a single fish has the chance to replace itself in the wild.
It's a strange concept to anyone familiar with the bluefin’s beauty and unsurpassed physiology. Bluefin are one hell of a fine-tuned instrument—Nature's own Stradivarius—a warm-blooded fish at the top of the food chain, unbridled and unbounded to all but the technological prowess and utter folly of humankind.
Their demise marks not only the destruction of a spectacular animal, but holds untold consequences for the food chain over which they reign. What type of predator-prey shifts will occur in their absence? What species will suffer from the lack of larvae no longer produced in their breeding grounds? What type of vital links will be lost between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean when bluefin are no longer prowling between these water bodies?
With regional management a failure, efforts to ban the international trade squashed, and the Gulf oil spill devastating one of its only two breeding grounds, time is running out for Atlantic bluefin.
Let Nobu know there can be no more excuses or menu “warning labels”: it’s time to take bluefin tuna off the menu. Let the owners know you won’t let them off the hook.
Photo credit: snowpea&bokchoy
Marah Hardt
is a research scientist, writer, and consultant. She has written for Yale e360, Ecology Letters, and The American Prospect.
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