There has been great concern that overfishing of bluefin tuna has decimated the stock to the brink of extinction. Bluefin tuna is one of the most popular fish used in sushi making; maguro is a standard item on any sushi menu, and the more prized fatty loin part, called toro is sold at a premium price. The profitability of bluefin tuna is so high, in fact, that yesterday the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) succumbed to pressure from fishing industry lobbyists and chose not to ban bluefin exports, quite possibly condemning the species to extinction within the next couple of years.
Scott Bowen has a bit of a rant at True/Slant that I have to share more than a little agreement with:
So, who gets to kill the last bluefin tuna? The Japanese? Who will eat the last $5,000 slice — some Japanese billionaire, or some fat sashimi-sucking bastard in LA?
Who gets to shoot the last polar bear? A white Canadian, or a member of a First Nation? What will be the opening price in a bidding war for the pelt — $10 million?
It’s times like this, when I read news like that above, that I react with a sense of the ludicrous — as ludicrous as those delegates at that UN conference on endangered species who acted to endanger those species further — and I start to speculate that there just aren’t enough predators eating people.
The remark about the polar bears? Yeah, CITES chose not to ban the sale of polar bear products (pelts, primarily) either. But at least global warming will kill off all the polar bears before the hunters will, so we don’t have to feel quite so guilty about that.
