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Category: Fish / Fishing, Aquaculture / Food and Beverage / Food and Cooking / Environmental Health / Environment

Tuna sells for more than $860,000 at Tokyo auction

Thursday, 5 Jan 2017 12:07:38

Sushi chain boss Kiyoshi Kimura poses with his purchase. (AP: Eugene Hoshiko)

A Japanese sushi chain boss has bid a winning 74.2 million yen ($866,000) for a 212-kilogram bluefin tuna in what may be the last auction at the current site of Tokyo's Tsukiji market.

The winning bid for the prized but imperilled species was the second highest ever after a record 155.4 million yen ($1.7 million) bid in 2013.

Kiyomura Corporation owner Kiyoshi Kimura posed after the predawn New Year auction with the gleaming, man-sized fish, which was caught off the coast of northern Japan's Aomori prefecture.

He often wins the annual auction.

Last year's New Year auction was supposed to be the last at Tsukiji's current location.

The shift to a new facility on Tokyo Bay was delayed due to soil contamination at the former gas plant site.

Japanese are the biggest consumers of the torpedo-shaped bluefin tuna, and surging consumption of sushi has boosted demand, as experts warn the species could go extinct.

A report by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean last year put the population of bluefin tuna at 2.6 per cent of its "unfished" size, down from an earlier assessment of 4.2 per cent.

AP

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