Tuna Sold at Record Price Is Overfished, Study Says

The number of Pacific bluefin tuna, a fish that fetched a record 155.4 million yen ($1.78 million) in a Tokyo auction last week, dropped 96.4 percent due to decades of overfishing, the Pew Environment Group said.

The bluefin’s numbers have plummeted because of inadequate fishing regulations in the species’ western Pacific spawning area, Amanda Nickson, Pew’s director for global tuna conservation, said today in a phone interview. The stock assessment by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-Like Species in the North Pacific Ocean, a joint U.S.- Japan research group, is “shocking,” said Nickson.