Saving Seafood

West Coast swordfish landings hit slight dip in 2018

May 15, 2019 — West Coast swordfish stocks are on the upswing, but Homeland Security stipulations could mean fewer of them will be offloaded at docks in California.

According to a recent stock assessment report to the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-Like Species in the North Pacific Ocean, in 2018, swordfish biomass increased from 51,000 metric tons in 1998 to an estimated 71,979 metric tons in 2016.

The U.S. fleet working the waters in the Western and North Central Pacific Ocean harvests but a fraction of what the fleet from Japan catches in a year. According to data from the stock assessment report, Japan’s average catch has hovered around 3,500 metric tons in recent years, and the U.S. harvest has come in at around half of the landings posted by fleets from China.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Bluefin Tuna Sells for $632,000 at Tsukiji’s New Year Auction

January 5, 2016 — TOKYO — A sushi chain boss paid $632,000 for a 466-pound bluefin tuna at auction on Thursday.

The 74.2 million yen winning bid for the prized but imperiled species was the second highest ever after a record 155.4 million yen bid in 2013 at the annual New Year auction at the famed Tsukiji market.

Kiyomura Corp. owner Kiyoshi Kimura posed, beaming, with the gleaming, man-sized fish, which was caught off the coast of northern Japan’s Aomori prefecture.

His company, which runs the Sushi Zanmai chain, often wins the auction. This year’s purchase works out to $1,356 per pound.

Japanese are the biggest consumers of the torpedo-shaped bluefin tuna, and surging consumption of sushi has boosted demand, as experts warn the species could go extinct.

A report by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean last year put the population of bluefin tuna at 2.6 percent of its “unfished” size, down from an earlier assessment of 4.2 percent.

Read the full story at NBC News