Bluefin Tuna Brings $320,000 at Japanese Market

An 892-pound (405-kilogram) bluefin tuna has sold for 36.5 million yen ($320,000) in what may really be Tsukiji market’s last New Year auction at its current site in downtown Tokyo, local media reports said Friday.

The winning bid for the prized but threatened species at the predawn auction was well below the record 155.4 million yen bid at 2013’s annual New Year auction. It amounted to about 90,000 yen ($798) per kilogram and was paid by a local wholesaler, the reports said. 

This year’s top per kilogram price, for a smaller tuna, was $1,419, compared with about $7,930 per kilogram for the 2013 record-setting auction price, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and other local media reported. That price was paid by Kiyomura Corp., whose owner, Kiyoshi Kimura, runs the Sushi Zanmai chain, the reports said. Kimura has often won the annual auction in the past.

The reports said the top-priced tuna was one of the biggest ever sold at the auction.

Last year’s New Year auction was supposed to be the last at Tsukiji’s current location, as was the New Year auction the year before. The market’s shift to a new facility on a former gas plant site on Tokyo Bay has been repeatedly delayed because of concerns over soil contamination.

Japanese are the biggest consumers of the torpedo-shaped bluefin tuna, and surging consumption here and overseas has led to overfishing of the species. Experts warn it faces possible extinction, with stocks of Pacific bluefin depleted by more than 97 percent from their pre-industrial levels.

There are signs of progress toward protecting the bluefin, though. Japan has begun enforcing laws banning catches that exceed quotas, with violators subject to fines or possible jail time. 

Japan and other governments recently agreed on a plan to rebuild Pacific bluefin stocks, with a target of 20 percent of historic levels by 2034.

Tsukiji is one of Tokyo’s most popular tourist destinations as well as the world’s biggest fish market. It was due to move to the new site, at Toyosu, in 2016. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike postponed the relocation, but after months of political haggling and uncertainty she announced the move would go ahead. 

The new market is due to open October 11, 2018.
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