Bluefin tuna sells for record $3.1 million at Tokyo fish market, but scarcity clouds celebration

[Zorro]

Source: Washington Post

A bluefin tuna sold for a record $3.1 million at the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s new fish market on Saturday, but behind the celebrations hides a worrying tale of overfishing and dwindling stocks.

Kiyoshi Kimura, who owns the Sushi Zanmai restaurant chain, paid 333.6 million yen for the 613-lb (278-kg) fish at the first auction of the year, and the first to be held at Tokyo’s new Toyosu fish market after last year’s the move from the famous Tsukiji market.

The price at the predawn auction was nearly 10 times higher than the price paid at last year’s auction — albeit for a considerably smaller fish — and roughly double the previous record, also set by Kimura, in 2013. There was an intense bidding war with a rival buyer who had won last year.

The winner said he was “very satisfied with the quality” of the fish, but admitted he had paid much more than he had expected.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/05/bluefin-tuna-sells-record-million-tokyo-fish-market-scarcity-clouds-celebration

[OnlinePoker]

1. Over $5000 per pound. Crazy. n/t

[W T F]

3. @ $5000 a pound, you got to wonder if he was more interested in the radioactive cesium in it

[roamer65]

21. Don't forget the Strontium-90.

All thanks to the 3 fully melted reactors at Fukushima Dai’ichi.

Strontium-90 is even worse than radioactive Caesium. It mimics Calcium and deposits right into human bone to do its dirty work on the marrow.

[FBaggins]

31. Why?

While there certainly was Sr-90 in the Fukuhima cores, Strontium is far less volatile than Cesium, so little of it escaped the reactors.

I have yet to see a study where marine life had Strontium levels above those found prior to Fukushima unless the fish were caught actually in the bay of the Fukushima plant. Can you provide one?

[Nitram]

4. Yes, that's ridiculous. That would be something like $100 for a single piece of tuna sashimi.

I think the buyer got carried away. Wholesale!

[paleotn]

9. I seen this happen plenty of times.

Not at this level, but things can get out of control for relatively mundane things. From pure emotion, they bid something well beyond its real market value. Auctions of all kinds are a great way to view the human Psyche in real time. And one more reason the rational market theory is bullshit much of the time.

[Nitram]

28. True. I'm reading that the winning bidder competes with one other bidder, and he lost to him last

year. It's a publicity stunt for their companies.

[Owl]

18. Wouldn't the fish spoil before they could sell much of it?

[getagrip_already]

20. no.....

It won't spoil. The sushi you eat is at least a week old before the first piece is eaten. It starts out frozen like a rock and is sloly thawed. Then it's aged.

Finally it's prepared and served over several days.

1200 pounds isn't unusual for a gbft, and it all gets eaten before spoiling.

Especially for the first fish of the season. It's a prized meal, and people will spend thousands on a serving. It's good luck.

It's not the fish, it's the symbolism.

[Blues Heron]

24. nothing more puke-worthy

than some superstitious bs leading to the extinction of species

Tuna's good luck!!!
Ivory's good luck!
Rhino horn's good luck!!
Tiger Penis is VERY good luck!!!!

Cut it out morans! - the're all almost completely gone! Are you blind?

[getagrip_already]

25. GOP testicals bring good luck and great health to those.....

That rip them off .....

Nowhere near endangered either. Happy hunting.

Oh, and tuna can sell for as little as $3/pound. Nobody gets rich fishing for it.

[Blues Heron]

27. heh heh!

Seriously.

[Sunlei]

2. 15-16 year old tuna, should be illegal to fish/sell mature breeders.

Bluefin tuna mature slowly, reaching sexual maturity at about 5 years of age, with a maximum lifespan believed to be about 25 years. Pacific bluefin tuna have been recorded to reach 9 feet (2.7 meters) in fork length and can weigh over 1,000 pounds (454 kg).

[Submariner]

5. The Bluefin will be economically extinct within a decade

It is being overfished to extinction. There is even a TV show called ‘Wicked Tuna’ showing the industry on its last legs as a bunch of trophy hunter losers scavenge for the last of the planet’s spawning population of Bluefins.

BPs Gulf oil spill knocked the hell out of an entire year class of Bluefin eggs and fry. The species is almost done within its historical range.

[c-rational]

6. This simply saddens me.

[PatrickforO]

7. This is disgusting if you think it through.

Industrial trawling, coupled with the dumping of toxic waste in the oceans, has dramatically reduced the numbers of these fish.

Now they are CRITICALLY ENDANGERED and these assholes are spending big bucks for little pieces of one of the last.

Wouldn't we be better off letting this guy live and eating some chicken or turkey or tofu or something ELSE?

Do we ALWAYS have to drive species of animals extinct?

[PatrickforO]

8. God, I feel like weeping. This is a crime

against the earth, made worse by the thoughtlessness of these greedy buyers - the same 'market' that buys hunting trophies, rhinoceros horns, elephant tusks, pelts, heads.

Sorry, I know this is a repeat post, but things like this bother me so much.

[violetpastille]

17. +1

We all need to get used to eating lower down on the food chain.

[Sunlei]

29. Only positive I see is the publicity brings a spot-light to the Tunas plight.

Japan as a society has to stop exploiting Tuna & fattened to crippled-foundering, Canadian raised colts. Shipped live to Japan, airlines have to START to refuse to ship sushi-colts!!

the 1,000s of race horses they throw to slaughter,

and the poor dolphins they round-up with speed boats & keep claiming "Local Tradition". Japan sells 100s of the babies to 'water parks'. That's not tradition at all!

To many parts of society enable these 'industries' to exist.

[elmac]

10. Capitalism, you've got to love it

or hate it like I do.

[Vinca]

11. Jeez, I hope he's "satisfied with the quality of the fish."

Hope you don't have to mortgage your house to eat at his restaurant.

[tavernier]

12. The name of my live aboard marina before Irma.

We would get chunks of tuna from the returning fishermen, eat sushi right off the boat.

[pangaia]

13. For what it is worth, and this is not to defend the practice,

OR the over-fishing of bluefin tuna- maguro or hon-maguro, in Japanese - but the first auction of the year almost always brings high bids like this. It's a bragging rights thing, for sure.

[Apollyonus]

14. Sadly, the higher the price, higher the fishing

This will cause extinction faster since every fishing trawler wound be out to find a bluefin tuna now for a big payday.

Only an international ban can stop this.

[OnlinePoker]

16. As with whaling, Japan would ignore it.

Or claim "scientific" research as a reason for fishing.

[getagrip_already]

26. That price was ceremonial only.....

Despite what reality teevee tells you, nobody is getting rich fishing for bft. It can sell for as little as $3/pound and some fish don't get bought. It's a gamble to send a fish to Japan. The seller has to pay overnight shipping, and if the fish doesn't sell, you get a bill instead of a check.

Wicked tuna makes a lot of stuff up, including market prices.

[howardmappel]

15. Prestige

It is also a prestige thing to buy the first tuna auctioned off each year, hence the sky-high price. However, the higher the first price, generally the higher the prices the rest of the year (albeit not as crazy as the first price).

[pecosbob]

19. No one with any functioning brain cells would celebrate such a thing...not even the one selling it

[roamer65]

22. A lot of money for a radioactive fish.

All fish in the Pacific now have measurable quantities of radioactive strontium and caesium.

That’s what happens when you melt down 3 reactors next to Pacific Ocean, one loaded with Plutonium-enriched MOX fuel.

Think about that when you eat your next Pacific salmon or open a can of Pacific tuna.

[EX500rider]

30. The Chernobyl disaster was the big release of Strontium-90.

The Chernobyl disaster released roughly 10 PBq, or about 5% of the core inventory, of strontium-90 into the environment. The Fukushima Daiichi disaster released 0.1-1 PBq of strontium-90 in the form of contaminated cooling water into the Pacific Ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90

[betsuni]

23. The ocean called, it's running out of tuna.