At Tsukiji Fish Market, Dealers & Diners Confident They'll Never, Ever Run Out Of Bluefin Tuna

[hatrack]

EDIT

"Nobody really knows the bad state bluefin tuna is in," veteran sushi chef Kazuo Nagayama said from his snug, top-end sushi bar in Tokyo's Shimbashi district, a popular area for after-work socializing. "I don't think it'll disappear, but we might not be able to catch any. It's obvious we need to set quotas." Catching bluefin tuna, called "hon-maguro" here, is a lucrative business. A single full-grown specimen can sell for 2 million yen, or $22,000, at Tokyo's sprawling Tsukiji fish market. Japanese fishermen are vying with Korean, Taiwanese and Mexican counterparts for a piece of a $900 million a year wholesale market.

Fish dealers at Tsukiji market say the number of bluefin sold at early morning auctions has fallen over the past 10 to 15 years, but most are confident the supply will never run out. Sushi bars and supermarkets still readily sell the fish, which is considered a special treat that families might splurge on once every month or two. There's no government campaign to encourage people to rein in their appetites for the iconic Japanese food.

"I have seen some reports on TV about their numbers falling, but I really haven't thought about cutting back on eating hon-maguro," said Sumire Baba, a Tokyo homemaker. "I guess I'm optimistic they'll recover."

A scientific assessment released in January found that Pacific bluefin spawning stocks - a key measure of adults that can reproduce - have plummeted by about three-quarters over the past 15 years to match historic lows last seen in the early 1980s. It estimated that the species has dwindled to just 3.6 percent of its original population, and that more than 90 percent of fish caught were juveniles between the ages of 0 and 3, before they reach reproductive maturity. The report, compiled by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the Northern Pacific and based on data through 2010, received only scant coverage in the Japanese press.

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http://www.komonews.com/news/national/Tuna-collapse-fears-fail-to-curb-Japans-appetite-193847401.html

[PearliePoo2]

1. They will eat it to extinction.

"I have seen some reports on TV about their numbers falling, but I really haven't thought about cutting back on eating hon-maguro," said Sumire Baba, a Tokyo homemaker. "I guess I'm optimistic they'll recover."

[wtmusic]

2. Sometimes confidence just sucks.

[pscot]

3. No doubt there is some Principle

that explains this detachment from reality.

[phantom power]

4. Coincidentally, I listented to some research on NPR yesterday...

that demonstrated we have a built-in bias for favoring optimistic outlooks. The way they demonstrated this was pretty cool - they 'turned off' the relevant portion of the brain with a magnetic field, and showed that the bias goes away.

Tangentially, I find it a bit creepy that we now know how to switch off bits of brain with a magnetic field. But still cool.

[GliderGuider]

5. Wow! The Air Loom has finally been constructed for real?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews
http://www.theairloom.org/

The Air Loom is the first recorded account of a human Influencing Machine. Borne of the same paranoia and psychosis that characterises contemporary reports of mind control, the air loom emerges from the mind of James Tilly Matthews, a bedlam inmate who had previously been embroiled in political intrigue during the french revolution. Up until now The Air Loom existed only as drawings and writings, manifestations of Matthews psychosis. He believed it ran on magnetic fluids. Operated by skilled pneumatic chemists who controlled the warp of the fluids that travelled out of the machine toward the intended victim

The primary targets were MPs and the patients of mad houses (including Matthews himself). Targeted in coffee houses by the Assasins who worked the machine, their victims were surreptiously primed with vapours, ready for the dreadful event-workings of the machine

Matthews writes of the formidable arsenal of tortures that the Air Loom could deliver. They include: Kiteing, Bomb bursting, Lobster cracking, Thigh Talking, Fluid Locking and Lengthening the brain.

[wtmusic]

7. Can it serve up an ice-cold draft IPA?

I'll bring my own barstool.

[phantom power]

8. fluid-locking, lobster-cracking, thigh-talking, IPA-serving...

it's all in the english you put on the magnetic fluids

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Adding another one to the list.

I always object when I see swordfish on the menu, for the same reason.

List keeps getting longer too...

[kristopher]

9. NOAA's Western Atlantic Bluefin Tuna page

http://www.fishwatch.gov/seafood_profiles/species/tuna/species_pages/atl_bluefin_tuna.htm