Japanese scientists to breed 'super tuna'

Tokyo.....Japanese scientists will have bred a new "super-tuna" within a decade that will be stronger, more resistant to disease and taste better than the bluefin presently in the oceans. Stocks of tuna have declined by as much as 90 per cent in some waters. The tuna - stocks of which are in global decline - would be raised in farms to meet surging demand around the world for the traditional Japanese delicacy. A team from Japan's Fisheries Research Agency, The University of Tokyo and Kyushu University is close to completing the genome sequence of the bluefin tuna to unravel the secrets of the chemical building blocks of the fish and expects to be able to start a breeding programme next year. Oceans becoming acidic 'at fastest rate for 65 million years'"We have already completed two computer sequencing runs and have around 60 per cent of the tuna genome," said Dr. Kazumasa Ikuta, director of research at the Yokohama-based Fisheries Research Agency. "We plan to use the sequence to establish a breeding programme for bluefin tuna as most aquaculture farmers presently use wild juveniles," he said. "We want to establish a complete aquaculture system that will produce fish that have good strength, are resistant to disease, grow quickly and taste delicious." Stocks of tuna have declined by as much as 90 per cent in some waters and the World Wildlife Fund has warned that the Atlantic bluefin will have been wiped out within three years unless radical measures are taken to protect stocks. In June, celebrities including Sting, Jemima Khan and Elle Macpherson signed a letter to Japanese chef Nobu, operator of the upmarket restaurant that is part-owned by Robert De Niro, vowing to boycott the chain. "It is astounding lunacy to serve up endangered species for sushi," wrote Stephen Fry. "There is no justification for peddling extinction, yet that is exactly what Nobu is doing in restaurants around the world." Discussions are presently under way in the Spanish city of San Sebastian on how to protect tuna species, with environmental groups demanding tougher quotas and the European Union proposing reducing tuna fleets. Nine of the 23 tuna species are officially listed as under threat from overfishing, with the global annual catch of tuna at around 4.5 million tons.