On Tuesday, the largest fish market in Japan was auctioning off a giant blue tuna at almost $400,000. The record price was paid Wednesday at Tokyo's Tsukiji market for a fish weighing 342 kilograms, meaning the buyer paid more than $1,000 per kilogram.
The 342kg of blue tuna has beaten up the record which was set 10 years ago when a 202kg of blue tuna was sold at 20.2m yen. During the New Year auction at Tsukiji, Market officials were surprised to see the dramatic rise in price in the world’s largest fish market.
A Tsukiji spokesman said that the blue tuna was really the largest fish but the price that has been set was shocking.
Nowadays, pacific blue tuna has become a very rare species. The stock level has fallen down to 90% from 1976 to 2006 due to over-exploitation. But the demand for blue tuna is still high in especially in Japan where a small slice of fish is expected to be bought at $40 per consumer.
"The custom of eating raw fish is spreading throughout the world, so that it's no longer an era where Japan is consuming all of the limited supply of tuna," said an auction manager.
Japan is considered to be largest consumer of tuna fish. It has been reported that 600,000 tons of tuna are eaten annually by the Japanese people and alertness of sustainable fishing remains low.
