The World Wide Fund for Nature warned in a recent report that illegal fishing for bluefin tuna is pervasive in Europe to meet Japanese market demand.
The report, "Tuna Farming in the Mediterranean: the bluefin tuna stock at stake," criticizes the European Union for legal loopholes that allow tuna farms to benefit from aquaculture subsidies.
It notes that tuna farming, or the fattening of wild tuna in cages, is not aquaculture, in which fish are bred and reared in captivity, and that the expansion of tuna farming in the Mediterranean could soon result in the commercial extinction of the highly endangered bluefin tuna.