Japan's Kiyomura Corp paid 510 million yen (roughly 2.8 million or $3.25 million) for a single bluefin tuna at auction in Tokyo on Monday, the highest price ever paid at the annual New Year auction that's now held at the Toyosu fish market. The giant fish weighed 243 kilos (536 pounds) and, as in years past, Kiyomura's president and "Tuna King" Kiyoshi Kimura was willing to pay over the odds for the finest specimen on sale.
It's the UK equivalent of bullfighting. Next week, in Falmouth in Cornwall, anglers will compete to fish for bluefin tuna in a three-day tournament. Sponsored by companies including Suzuki and Shimano, it's a festival of cruelty and destruction, waging war on a magnificent giant which, in a rare instance of ecological hope, has begun returning to our shores. Where's the sport in this sportfishing?