A Japanese team of scientists are now announcing that they are close to completing genome sequencing of the Bluefin tuna. Once they have reached this goal, their next project will be to use their knowledge to create a tuna breeding program for a new type of tuna specially designed for aquacultures.

The wild tuna populations have become severely depleted due to overfishing and the WWF has warned that the Atlantic Bluefin tuna will be eradicated within three years unless radical measures are taken to safeguard remaining specimens.

“We have already completed two computer sequencing runs and have around 60 per cent of the tuna genome,” says Dr. Kazumasa Ikuta, director of research at the Yokohama-based Fisheries Research Agency. “We expect to have the entire sequence in the next couple of months. We plan to use the sequence to establish a breeding programme for bluefin tuna as most aquaculture farmers presently use wild juveniles. 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.”

The genome sequencing is the result of the collaborative efforts of scientists from Japan’s Fisheries Research Agency, Kyushu University, and The University of Tokyo.

A New Jersey woman whose diet consisted almost exclusively of canned tuna for five years can sue a tuna fish producer over the mercury poisoning she allegedly suffered from, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday.

Deborah Fellner sued Tri-Union Seafoods LLC under the New Jersey Product Liability Act for failing to warn her of the dangers of eating the company’s canned albacore tuna. She claimed that the Tri-Union Seafoods tuna products that she ate from 1999 to 2004 contained methylmercury and other harmful compounds which caused her injury.

California-based Tri-Union Seafoods LLC, who market their products under the “Chicken of the Sea” brand, said the company was not responsible for her claimed illness, arguing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not consider canned tuna fish worthy of mercury warnings to consumers. The company referenced a 2005 letter the FDA sent former California Attorney General Bill Lockyer* that said state-mandated mercury warning labels were pre-empted by federal law.

The law suit was thrown out by U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the class action.

“State law is not pre-empted whenever an agency has merely ‘studied’ or ‘considered’ an issue; state law is pre-empted when federal law conflicts with state law,” 3rd U.S. Circuit Senior Judge Walter Stapleton wrote for the appeals court.

In response to the ruling of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Tri-Union Seafoods asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case and the justices have now allowed the appeals court ruling to stand. The U.S. Supreme Court has not commented on their decision.

* Lockyer was trying to sue three tuna producers (one of them being Tri-Union Seafoods) for not complying with California’s Proposition 65. According to Proposition 65, businesses must provide “clear and reasonable” warnings before exposing people to known carcinogens or reproductive toxins.

This year, fishermen in the southern ocean of Australia report seeing more tuna than in 20 years. They report not only bigger catches, but also that the average tuna is about 20% lager than previous years.

Australian Tuna Association chief executive Brian Jeffries says: “There’s a lot more fish out there than there has been in the past 10 years and the fish are bigger in that period.”

This leads some to believe that the tuna population is recovering and that it has been doing so since 2006 when it was discovered that Japanese boats were catching 40,000 tonnes of southern blue fin tuna illegally each year and had been doing so for at least 20 years. The discovery lead to a crack down on Japanese illegal fishing and the illegal fishing in the region has, although still preset, dramatically dropped since 2006.

Is the tuna population in the Southern Ocean starting to recover, or is this just a sign of an imminent collapse – similar to the good years that preceded the cod collapse in the Atlantic? Only the future can tell.