Skip to content Skip to a section
Field note

Atlantic bluefin tuna in 2018: Toyosu opens · 377

[376] [desk-bluefin-tuna-9] In 2018, the field log for Atlantic bluefin tuna is headed “Toyosu opens.” The figure kept beside that heading is 2018. It is a count or a date from the work, not a rank of the species’ worth. A zoo birthday card does not replace the log. This chapter keeps ten timeline points, five eras and three milestones so a later translation can hold the same years.

A warm-bodied tuna whose Tokyo auction prices and ICCAT quotas made a single fish into a geopolitical unit. Is the January auction price a stock assessment? No. First-sale theatrics at Tsukiji/Toyosu are marketing. ICCAT indices and spawning-stock biomass are the management numbers.

Did Atlantic bluefin recover in the 2010s? Eastern Atlantic/Mediterranean quotas and enforcement improved some indices after a crash. Recovered is a press word; scientists speak in probabilities and two stocks. Purse seines catch live fish for fattening cages. It can hide juvenile take inside a farmed label.

Why did Carl Safina write about bluefin? Song for the Blue Ocean (1997) and later essays treated giant tuna as a governance failure, not a recipe. Thunnus orientalis is a different species under WCPFC/IATTC math. The sushi case looks identical; the commissions do not. Burst speeds exceed 60 km/h. Regional endothermy lets the fish hunt in colder water than most tunas.

Keep 2018, “Toyosu opens,” and 2018 together or the note on Atlantic bluefin tuna stops being that year’s record.2018

Figures to keep

Year of the note
2018
Figure to keep
2018
Species
Atlantic bluefin tuna
Line in the log
Toyosu opens

Clownfish in 2016: Finding Dory · 378Next essayAll 1000 essays1000