Andrew is a post-doctoral researcher in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
Sushi! Image from OpenClipArt.org
Bluefin tuna are some of the most endangered fish in the sea. Prized by the sushi industry for their delicious flavor, populations of bluefin have declined precipitously in recent decades.
They also may be the first species of fish to be driven to extinction by commercial fishing. Normally, when populations of fish get low, it isn’t profitable to fish for them anymore- thus they are not driven to extinction. However, a single bluefin tuna can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it is still profitable to fish for the last one.
Bluefin tuna at a seafood market in Japan. Image from SustainabilityNinja.com
Regional tuna management bodies have failed miserably to protect bluefin, so conservationists were hopeful when Monaco proposed an international ban on bluefin trade at the recent CITES meeting. Not surprisingly, the proposal failed to pass.
I am not optimistic about the future of the bluefin, and I’m not alone. Without CITES protection, these fish may be doomed within the next few decades.
And now we come to the ethical debate. Ordinarily, conservation-minded individuals don’t eat unsustainable fish like bluefin. However, at this point, I’m not convinced that this refusal helps. There is a demand for bluefin with or without us. The animals are just as likely to go extinct (read: highly likely) whether conservationists eat them or not. So, at this point, why shouldn’t we eat them?
We tried our best to guarantee a future for the bluefin, and it would have certainly been inappropriate to eat them while there was still hope. I’m not sure that there is hope anymore. All we are doing by not eating bluefin at this point is denying ourselves some tasty sushi. The animals are doomed with or without our consumption of them.
It’s April Fools Day, so I’m kinda-sorta kidding because I’m frustrated with CITES, but I still think this question could generate some interesting discussion.
For the purposes of this ethical debate, let’s assume that bluefin are going extinct in the next few decades (i.e. the long term future of the bluefin is not what the discussion on this post should be about) . Given that they are going extinct anyway, how are we helping in any way by refusing to eat them? Should we still refuse to eat them on sustainability grounds?
~WhySharksMatter
Eat! It’s kinda like a priest who has, for moral reasons, denied himself a piece… of a woman’s heart that is. So let’s just pretend women were going extinct and his men didn’t march. I say, “Get some!”
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You make the strangest and least relevant analogies that I’ve ever come across…
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I’m appalled! Where is the media on this?? I too am an avid sushi eater and I had no clue, but certainly would not have been ordering them this whole time if I had known! I remember one time when I was younger my family and I were watching a television program after having some meal that had beef in it. The television program had a cow that was being killed on it. I really don’t remember the specifics but I remember looking at my mom and being so upset. She told me that it shouldn’t make me upset because that’s what I just ate for dinner. I responded by saying, well that’s different, it’s already dead when you go to the store. My mothers wise words: if you don’t buy it, that’s one more packaged hamburger meat being left on the shelves and one less person promoting it. I know it’s ridiculous but if every person thought about it that way, then we might actually make a difference.
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“Where is the media on this?”
Off the top of my head, I can think of many top media sources that covered the Bluefin tuna issue in the last few years, including the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Time magazine, the Huffington Post, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and MSNBC.
If you haven’t heard of it, it’s not because of a lack of reporting.
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I feel that any animal that is being considered almost extinct should not even be able to be used for food. Capturing these endangered species for profit is wrong. There have also been many issues with certain fish being passed off as other fish in order to make more profit.
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Being that I am a die hard sushi lover, I am glad thia is a joke because I certainly would not be the person to sacrifice eating bluefin. On a serious matter, of course this would be an issue that should be tackled, but is it really worth it on the terms of fish are a species that are continuously being largely used for commercial consumption? Personally, I do not believe that refusing to eat them will make much of a difference but will only contribute to allowing another fish to become a target in replace of the bluefin.
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