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Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters
A chef holds the head of a bluefin tuna after cutting its meat at a sushi restaurant in Tokyo on Jan. 5, 2012. The 269-kilogram (593 lbs) tuna caught off the coast of northern Japan, was sold at a record of 56.49 million yen ($736,234) in the country's first fish auction of the year.
Franck Robichon / EPA
The record-breaking fish on display at Tsukiji market.
msnbc.com staff and news services report from TOKYO:
This tuna is worth savoring: It cost nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.
A bluefin tuna caught off northeastern Japan fetched a record 56.49 million yen, or about $736,000, Thursday in the first auction of the year at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market.
The price for the 593-pound tuna beat last year's record of 32.49 million yen or about $416,000.
A Sushi-Zanmai shop in Tsujiki was selling fatty tuna sushi from the prized fish for 418 yen ($5.45) apiece Thursday.
"It's superb. I can do nothing but smile. I am very happy," said Kosuke Shimogawara, a 51-year-old customer, who pointed out that if sold at cost, each piece of sushi could cost as much as 8,000 yen ($96). Read the full story.
Shizuo Kambayashi / AP
Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., center left, cuts the bluefin at his Sushi Zanmai restaurant.
Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters
A chef holds part of the fish after cutting.
Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP - Getty Images
A customer eats sushi freshly sliced up from the bluefin.
A 593-pound tuna fetches a record breaking price that makes it the world's most expensive tuna fish. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Leave a Comment:
Wonder how old that tuna was to reach such a large size?? Seems a shame to waste such a magnificant creature on sushi!
There are two studies as sources to the longevity of a bluefin tuna, one has it at 15 years the other at 26 years. I would say about 20.5 years then longevity if you take both into account.
shamefully savory?
yeah, eating fish in its purest form is such a shame and a waste. too bad it wasn't canned for tuna salad? or cat food? I'm not sure what your point is...
I'm sure her point is that's it's okay to eat tuna and use it for other crappy food products just don't eat that particular fish because he's magnificent and don't use him for sushi because apparently she doesn't enjoy sushi.
Its a fish it could be a 100 years old and i wouldn't care. They caught it, fetched a great price and like goes on.
Well, at least this bodes well for their economy.
Wow - That looks AMAZING!
mmmmm
These fish will not be around much longer I'm afraid.
Neither will us humans, so it's all good.
At the rate of overfishing of this species, how many years before the bluefin tuna is extinct in the wild?
Congratulations, MSNBC! You are glorifying the hunting of one of the most endangered species in the ocean! WTF? Bluefin are amazing creatures, lightning fast hunters (actually much more impressive than sharks), and they are almost GONE. Japan is single handedly depleting our oceans of fish, and there seems to be no stopping them. Making it illegal worldwide to hunt bluefin would be a start, although the Japanese are good at ignoring international laws where hunting is concerned (considering that they butcher about 2,000 plus whales a year in internationally protected waters), but how DARE you post this article with no regard to nature or the preservation of the planet!
In case you haven't noticed, Japan is an island. Less than 30% of their 120million or so people are fed by their own crops. They also live in a very fish-rich part of the world. And fish has been a major part of their diet for centuries. Not only that but it's an economy for them. Unfortunately for you anti-fishing activists tuna is a very popular fish. They feed the tuna to their own people and export it to other countries. It's a recession for everyone.
Oh but let's bash Japan because we don't know anything about it. Let's forget entirely about the over-fishing other countries are doing in their own waters. Just ask those fishermen up in Alaska or the Gulf of Mexico how the fish are biting. So it's an overstatement to say that Japan is single handedly depleting our oceans of fish, you arrogant pessimist. It's not like the Japanese would actually listen to a law made by another country that has a direct blow against their economy.
You're lucky the Japanese are peaceful and self-restraint. You people walk all over them and criticize them for what they do and don't take a second to look at how ridiculous your own ways are, and not doing anything about it.
Such a beautiful creature killed just to satisfy ignorant Japanese superstitions.
Um...they're eating it not performing a voodoo ritual with it. What is superstitious about that?
And Erin-3277292 - You're breathing air and drinking water every day. Consuming precious commodities that can't be replaced with no regard for the other species on the planet that need air and water. How dare you? Perhaps you should stop those activities, for the sake of the planet!
So many haters.
You are right I HATE people who are destroying nature!
We need to speak up!
So what is it exactly that you eat?
My lifestyle permits shopping at Costco for their excellent canned albacore tuna. And it is extremely a good value with excellent taste.
Small babies are probably good cooked on a grill....still does not make it right!!!!!!!!!!111
The reason it fetched so much is due to catastophic overfishing of tuna. There simply aren't many of these giants left. Thanks to the Tragedy of the Commons we'll see even higher prices as these species are fished to extinction. Sadly, these higher prices only contribute to this orgy of overconsumption.
It's a shame that as a species we aren't intelligent enough to take care of our only home, and the fate of the planet rests on our ability to gain that intelligence. Fat chance.
Guess what? Anything we do as humans has an impact on the planet. If we stopped fishing and only grew our own food, the amount of land we would need for farming and raising animals would skyrocket. Plus the fertilizer runoff would damage water sources.
If all we as a race consumed were nutritionally fortified shakes, we would need tons of factories to produce the shakes. Factories produce an obscene amount of trash and consume a lot of electricity.
If we only ate bugs, all the bugs would soon be extinct.
So I propose that we all kill ourselves in order to save the planet.
Why is this news? Don't forget to eat the HEAD, boil it and suck out those eyeballs. Emmgawaa! Only animals eat raw fish, people will die of worms in their colon from eating raw fish.
Mmmmm...colon worms!
Bluefin tuna are not endangered. Rare indeed, but not endangered, and that's why they command the prices they do. If you've never tried eating a piece of it the way God intended, you don't know what you are missing and are speaking from a point of ignorance.
Kind of surprising they taste as good as they do, because they are not nearly as cute and fuzzy as other things that are also delicious like baby ducks, suckling pigs and spring lambs.
Let's not forget your local super market.
Despite what the old adage claims, there really aren't plenty of fish in the sea. In fact, 75 percent of the world's fisheries have been pushed beyond the point of sustainability, while some populations of swimmers like bluefin tuna and shark have declined by as much as 80 and 90 percent in recent years.
If you want to know who's perpetuating this massive fish fry, look no further than your local supermarket — especially if that grocery store is a Walmart, Acme, Albertsons, Cub, Farm Fresh, Hornbacher's, Lucky, Jewel-Osco, Save-A-Lot, Shaw's/Star Market, Shop N' Save, or Shoppers.
Walmart and SUPERVALU (which owns Acme, Albertsons, Cub, Farm Fresh, Hornbacher's, Lucky, Jewel-Osco, Save-A-Lot, Shaw's/Star Market, Shop N' Save, and Shoppers stores) rank as some of the worst offenders when it comes to supermarkets that sell unsustainable species of fish. Walmart ranked ninth out of 20 grocery stores on Greenpeace's Supermarket Scorecard, while SUPERVALU came in at an abysmal number 15. Not only do these stores fail to provide sound, conservation-minded sustainable seafood programs, they regularly sell fish included on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. These types of fish have some of the lowest population numbers — selling and eating them not only pushes these species to the brink of extinction, it threatens to disrupt entire marine ecosystems.
I'm confused.... one customer paid $5.94 for a piece, but at cost it says each piece would be $96.........am I missing something...
Wow, that's crazy!
it comes out to about the cost of gold. the previous price was much cheaper. i think he overpaid just for publicity for the whole process. i think he is selling at a loss.
The Ross sea is the last ocean to remain relatively untouched by humans, but not for long. New Zealand opened up this fishery in 1996 for the commercial fishing of Southern Ocean Tooth Fish, commonly known as Patagonian Tooth Fish or Chilean Sea Bass. There are now twelve nations cashing in on the harvest and through greed, misinformation, delusion and assumption these governments are allowing the destruction of this unsustainable eco system.
Please sign the petition to stop commercial fishing in the Ross Sea at:
Please sign the petition to stop commercial fishing in the Ross Sea at: lastocean dot org