Just last week the Huffington Post reported on the latest of NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) rulings which officially sees the Atlantic bluefin tuna out of the endangered species list, at least for now. The status of the species will be reviewed in early 2013 when a new stock assessment and more detailed information on the impacts of the BP oil spill, which is thought to have decimated the fish in the Gulf of Mexico, are available. Whilst the stats report that tuna populations have fallen 80 percent in the past 40 years, this was clearly not enough to ban bluefin tuna fishing in US waters. A sure victory for the New England fishing industry and its supporters in Congress, who argued listing the fish as endangered would hit the industry hard. The U.S. accounts for about 5 percent of the global bluefin harvest, with more than half the catch being exported. Most of the catch goes to Japan, where a single large fish can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
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