Japanese bluefin tuna was born and raised in a Japanese university research programme in Winsted and then shipped to Angera, a meat and seafood distributor, on its way to pricey restaurants and markets in New York. Researcher said that the blue-gray fish traveled farther in death (about 6,600 miles, as the crow flies) than during a life spent swimming in nylon net pens off the coast of Japan, near Wakayama.
It is told that the researchers at Kinki University had raised it from an egg and tended to the tuna twice a day, hand-feeding the fish on a carefully chosen diet of squid, blue mackerel and sardines that had been previously frozen to kill bacteria.
According to researcher bluefin tuna are treasured by sport fishermen and sushi chefs, and are part of the national identity of Japan. Eating wild bluefin is tantamount to a crime in the eyes of many conservation groups. The figure of World Wildlife Fund estimates 60,000 tons of bluefin are caught each year, double the level allowed by law and four times the amount considered sustainable by scientists.
Yonathan Zohar, professor and director of the Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, express that it is a very profitable aquaculture that is quite damaging to the wild population of the bluefin tuna, the way it’s being done in the Mediterranean.
