Are Bluefin Tuna Endangered?

The bluefin tuna is a highly popular food and game fish sought by both commercial and recreational fishermen for their exquisite taste, high market value, and extreme fighting skills.

Over the last 50 years or so, their numbers have unfortunately gone down substantially. And so, I wanted to know the answer to the question: are bluefin tuna endangered?

Both the Atlantic and Southern bluefin tuna are listed as endangered species with a currently decreasing population. Pacific bluefin tuna, on the other hand, are classified as vulnerable and have a slightly increasing population.

Continue reading this article if you want to know all the facts and science surrounding the mighty bluefin tuna’s status around the world.

Is The Bluefin Tuna an Endangered Species?

In general, all three bluefin tuna species (Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern) can be classified as endangered, even though they are not universally listed or recognized as such.

As is the case far too often, international leaders could not agree on a consensus regarding the status of the bluefin tuna. Hence, various attempts to ban global commercial fishing for bluefin tuna have failed.

A rather unfortunate circumstance that the species had to pay for dearly.

Over the last 50 years, severe commercial overfishing and ever-rising market value for this fish have led to drastically depleted populations all over the globe.

However, the IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature) has put the bluefin tuna on their red list of threatened species, which has helped to kick-start conservation and stock improvement plans.

The listing has also helped to raise global awareness of the bluefin’s status.

It is only thanks to these recent fisheries management efforts that some stocks are beginning to recover, if only slightly.

In order to get a more complete picture, let’s look at all three different bluefin species and their statues individually.

Atlantic bluefin tuna

Being the strongest and largest member of the bluefin tuna family, the Atlantic bluefin has been over-fished for decades.

Both the western Atlantic stocks off the US coast and the northeast Atlantic European and Mediterranean stocks have been severely depleted by the international commercial fishing industry.

Since the 1970s, the western stocks have declined by more than 80%, while the eastern stocks have dropped by 74% between 1957 and 2005.

Since 2005, things are moving in a more positive direction, and the Atlantic stocks are steadily increasing year after year. The reported numbers over the last couple of years are especially promising, indicating a much brighter future for this species.

Due to the previous harsh decline of the species, the IUCN has hitherto listed the following conservation statuses for the Atlantic bluefin tuna:

Western Atlantic Stocks	Vulnerable
North-Eastern and Mediterranean Stocks	Near Threatened

Pacific bluefin tuna

The somewhat smaller Pacific bluefin tuna has faced a similar fate since the 1960s.

Large-scale commercial fishing, primarily of Asian origin, has contributed to the species’ gradual decline in the Pacific Ocean.

According to recent estimates, the Pacific bluefin tuna is currently at a mere 2.6% of its historic levels, and fishing for this species remains to be unsustainable.

Despite this fact, the global community has failed to see the importance of preserving the species. As late as 2011, the status of the Pacific bluefin was listed under the category “Least Concern” regarding conservation needs for fish species.

Once again, it is only thanks to organizations such as the IUCN, Greenpeace, and Blue Ocean Institute that the species eventually got another conservation status:

Eastern and Western Pacific Stocks

Vulnerable

Southern bluefin tuna

The Southern bluefin is the somewhat lesser-known of the three bluefin tuna species. It can primarily be found off the coast of Australia and in the Indian Ocean.

Just like its relatives, the Southern bluefin has been vastly over-fished and depleted over the last few decades. In fact, this tuna species can be regarded as the most depleted of all.

However, recent studies suggest that the Southern bluefin stocks are slowly but surely recovering, which is a distant light at the end of the tunnel, but a light nonetheless!

This tuna species has come very close to extinction, but recent fisheries management efforts and the ban on illegal fishing activities close to the Southern bluefin’s spawning grounds seem to bear fruit.

Regardless of that, a lot of work remains, and the IUCN, as well as the New South Wales Fisheries Management Act of 1994, have hitherto held on to the following conservation classification:

Australian and Indian Ocean Stocks

Endangered

When Did Bluefin Tuna Become Endangered?

an old image of a group of men with a big bluefin tuna catch — Courtesy of Orion White

All three bluefin tuna species became endangered between the 1970s and 1990s after the world had discovered and grown its appetite for the bluefin’s exquisite meat.

Prior to that, bluefin tuna were actually regarded as being a pretty worthless catch. People along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts caught them occasionally, but most catches ended up in landfills or as cat food!

Then, something happened: Japanese sushi became a trend that quickly turned into an ultra-exquisite food for the super-rich.

As that trend developed, it spread across the world with the help of globalization and an ever-developing and fastening international transport system.

In parallel, sushi became even more popular and had by the 1990s been made available to the world’s middle classes.

This resulted in a gigantic demand for bluefin tuna fish, which could only be saturated by vastly over-fishing the world’s tuna stocks.

An unbelievable 60-80% of the global demand for bluefin tuna has its origin in Japan, which constitutes the world’s largest market for tuna sushi.

Today, the bluefin tuna is considered more valuable than ever and has an outrageously high market value, which, of course, does not go hand in hand with future sustainability efforts all that smoothly.

RELATED ARTICLE: Are Global FIsh Stocks Declining or Recovering?

How Many Bluefin Tuna Are Left in The World?

a giant bluefin tuna in the North Sea rolling on the surface — Courtesy of Markus Lundgren

It is extremely difficult to estimate the exact number of remaining bluefin tuna in the world.

However, based on annual catch quotas, research of reproduction patterns, and overall biomass measurements, researchers and fisheries managers are able to provide reliable numbers.