Feature: Either more Japanese sushis, sashimis or more bluefin tunas

It is an impressive picture broadcast worldwide about a Japanese chef holding a sharp knife to cut an extremely rare 212-kg bluefin tuna that was traded at a skyrocketing prize of 72 million yen (614,000 U.S. dollars) at a traditional New Year auction for 2017.

This stunning scene took place at the well-known outer Tsukiji market in the Japanese capital city of Tokyo.

A tuna king of such a species and such a size is not an easy prey. Population of the fish colony has been falling sharply because they grow very slowly, and even juvenile ones are now not be spared from an overfishing worldwide by Japanese.

John Tanzer, director of the marine program at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International, said this situation "is mainly a result of the Japanese eating habits."

The breeding population of the Pacific bluefin tuna has fallen to a theoretically estimated 2.6 percent of the pre-fishing level, he said, while between 80 percent and 90 percent of the Atlantic subspecies hunted used to serve Japanese dinner tables.

The delicious bluefin tuna meat ranks as a top material for such Japanese popular food as sushis and sashimis. And this is driving the sea fish to extinction.

Moreover, even the fact that they are on the Red List of Treatened Species issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature fail to help reduce the Japanese appetite.

Commercial interests have prompted Japanese fishing vessels to wander about in both the Pacific and the Atlantic to hunt the fish in amount far exceeding internationally agreed quotas.

A recent U.S. Pew Charitable Trust report said the bluefin tuna fishing today is three times faster than the sustainable level scientists estimate.

Official data showed marketable adult Pacific bluefin tuna totaled some 17,000 tons in 2014, compared to 160,000 tons in 1961, indicating that those that are being hunted are largely juveniles. This has led down global quotas for those under 30 kg each. For Japan, the ceiling is 4,007 tons in distribution among its coastal areas.

On Feb. 3, the Japanese government released an investigation report listing 8 prefectures for extra fishing or false reporting. It is found that by mid-September 2016, Mie in central Japan, among the regions concerned, had fished 23 tons in extra while failing to declare another 53 tons.

Tanzer blamed the massive illegal fishing in Japan and elsewhere on the Japanese government's failure to set up a "strong system to monitor, manage and supervise" it.

An absence of effective restrictions has been among the major problems in Japan's bluefin tuna fishing, Katsukawa Toshio, associate professor of the Mie University, told Japan's largest broadcaster NHK in 2014.

"Fixed fishing nets, purse nets are all year round in place, to hunt as much as fishers want," said Katsukawa.

In addition, Katsukawa criticized fishing in spawning grounds as well as massive hunting of juvenile tunas, mostly aged under 1, well under the spawning age of 3.

"It is Japan that holds the key to the population recovery of the bluefin tuna," he noted, admitting that Japan is the country that hunts and consumes the largest amount of tunas caught by human beings.

Still, Japan refuses to reduce fishing quotas in international commercial negotiations. Its stance led to the abortion of a regional plan to protect Pacific bluefin tuna in 2016.

Such an unyielding toughness was found similar to that concerning whale hunting. The Japanese government has condoned whales hunted for scientific purposes to end up in Japanese nationals' stomachs despite a worldwide ban on commercial whaling.

Only a voluntary compliance with quotas was officially demanded before media exposure forced the Japanese government to publish a plan in the report this year to pursue legal responsibilities and impose fines in punishment.

The 2010 Oscar-winning documentary feature, The Cove, exposes cruel annual killings of dolphins near the Japanese village of Taiji.

Food culture has been an excuse for the Japanese government on this fishing issue, regardless of the scientific finding that mercury content is the highest in the endangered whales and tunas top at the marine food chain.

However, "If there are tunas on the market, I will still buy them for cooking; but if they were banned, I would not eat," a Japanese housewife, who was unwilling to disclose her name, recently told Xinhua at a Tokyo supermarket.

The Japanese woman, who said she doesn't know about the overfishing by Japan, thought Japan should take sustainable fishing into account.

Katsukawa said, "Not to say 'no' to our food culture" is an immediate response of the Japanese people to international criticism over their consumption of whales and tunas.

However, such a continuous consumption in Japan that is expected to exhaust resources will not help sustain Japan's food culture, he added.

Endi