Paris Conference Could Impact Fate of Bluefin by Oceana/Jon Frank

This week, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) will meet in Paris for a 10-day conference that could change the troubled fate of bluefin tuna.  The development of the sushi-sashimi market over the past decade has made bluefin tuna a high priced and highly profitable species – a single tuna can fetch more than $100,000 in the Japanese market.

Today, these fast and impressive predators are on the verge of disappearing, so Oceana and our allies will attend the Paris conference with a set of clear goals in mind: close the industrial fishery responsible for driving bluefin toward extinction and protect bluefin spawning areas through the creation of marine reserves.

Though he won’t be joining us in Paris, actor and advocate Adrian Grenier has been helping us raise awareness of the issue since this spring, when he filmed a public service announcement about bluefin tuna off the coast of San Diego.  In June, a behind the scenes account of the PSA, which was sponsored by Nautica, appeared in GQ and the PSA is currently airing on Hulu.com.  In addition, Adrian recently penned a thorough examination of bluefin’s plight for The Huffington Post.

For everyone else who doesn’t want to see bluefin tuna go extinct (and doesn’t have an article coming out in the next GQ), you can go to www.oceana.org/goingfast to help.