Bluefin Tuna Decline Fueled By $4 Billion Black Market, Report Says

A $4 billion black market trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna has decimated populations of the endangered fish, according to a new report. A seven-month investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that fishermen and traders for years violated international quotas on the fish with little oversight by the governments of several countries or by international regulators, including the International Commission for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). While investigators focused on 10 nations, they found that violations were most profound in France, where the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries reportedly worked with the tuna industry to manipulate catch numbers. “We found that the system failed at every point,” said Katie Willson, a reporter who worked on the project. “It failed in that vessels were overfishing and that officials were turning a blind eye to that overfishing for years.” Populations of Atlantic tuna, which is prized for sushi, have dropped by 75 percent over the last four decades, with half of that loss happening between 1997 and 2007, according ICCAT data. International concerns about bluefin numbers became particularly acute in 2007, when France declared it caught nearly 10,000 tons — roughly double ICCAT’s allowed quota.