The bluefin tuna is the sports car of the sea, from its sleek, muscular, metallic blue and silvery white body to the hefty price it commands—a 500-pound specimen sold at a Japanese fish market for $175,000 earlier this year. Imperiled by the fishing pressure that accompanies such prices, the western Atlantic bluefin now faces a new threat: the heart of its breeding range lies in the path of the oil slick from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.
From the perspective of bluefin tuna, the oil spill could hardly have come at a worse time or place. May is their peak spawning time, and one of the two areas where most larva concentrate lies directly in the path of the spill. An unsuccessful breeding season resulting from the still-uncontrolled spill could prove devastating for a population already in drastic decline.
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