Bluefin tuna fishing and ranching: a difficult management problem

The fish processing industry and consumers in Japan are willing to pay high (and sometimes outrageous) prices for fresh bluefin tuna with fat content and flesh colour just right to be served raw as sashimi or sushi. This willingness was and still is the economic incentive for a high fishing pressure and for the development of tuna fattening in floating cages. After seeing the economic success of tuna fattening in Australia companies in the Mediterranean region also started with the fattening of bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus). So bluefin tuna fishing and ranching in the Mediterranean has grown out of proportion. Such an expansion is very difficult to justify when taking into account the total dependence of tuna ranching on the bluefin tuna fishery, a fishery that has been facing serious difficulties for more than a decade now and for which both scientists and NGOs have been consistently warning that catch levels are too hig