It is fact that bluefin tuna are the prized possession in Japan and it is the best among family fish includes yellowfin and skipjack tuna, bonito, albacore (the tuna of our cans and lunches), little tunny or false albacore, king mackerel, bullet mackerel, cero and Atlantic mackerel.
Commercial tuna fishermen are getting from $5 to $15 a pound for bluefins, depending on the fat content of each fish. Harpooned fish are preferred generally as fish caught by rod and reel get “burned out.” The people who are making the killing on tuna, though, are the middle men, especially the auction sellers in Japan.
It is told that Japanese buyers on shore were radioed by boats coming in, making purchase deals before landing. Some very fat, marbled fish were selling for $30 a pound. The Japanese weren’t interested in those slim offerings, yellow fin tuna. The Japanese are farm-raising tuna. They capture wild juveniles, put them in enormous pens and feed them concentrated fish meal from baitfish caught all over the world — like our menhaden.
The bluefin tuna is a special fish. It is warm-blooded (a contradiction to what we learned about fish in biology class). It has red meat, a function of containing large amounts of myoglobin, a muscle protein. With an extremely high body mass-to-surface-area ratio, the tuna build up heat and even require heat exchange organs.
