Regarding Hillel Wright's Jan. 9 Timeout article, "Are Japan's fish lovers eating tuna to extinction?": How utterly laughable it is for Hiroyuki Kuroda of Japan's Fisheries Research Agency to say that regulatory agencies believe that stock assessments of southern bluefin tuna (SBT), which are fished mainly by Australian and New Zealand companies, are under-reported. It is known worldwide that the Japanese blatantly caught 2.5 times its annual SBT quota for more than 20 years! That's 400,000 tons of overcatch. And that's only what was admitted to; the real figure is almost certainly higher.
It's because of this total disregard for fishery controls by Japanese interests that Australian fishermen have had to endure further quota cuts in the past 18 months. Australian fisheries are probably the most strictly managed fisheries anywhere in the world, painfully so.
Also worth asking, with all the emotive talk, some coming from scientists, is this question: What marine fish species has been made extinct from overfishing? Can't think of any? I thought so. Compared to their terrestrial cousins, fish species have led a charmed existence amid the daily extinctions caused by man's detrimental effects on land.
The only species facing extinction on water are law-abiding fishermen being wiped out by illegal operators, misguided scientists spouting their flawed logic and vote-seeking governments trying to appease urban Greenies. It's time the truth was laid out for people to see, rather than the spin being forced on us by powerful lobbyists and self-interest groups.