Teh interesting animal-related news stub thread

[Sforza]

Remember all that noise on the news a few months ago about banning commercial fishing of bluefin tuna (or not)? The ban was proposed by Monaco to prevent overfishing as it's been predicted that the fish would be extinct in about 12 years. Japan is the biggest consumer of bluefin tuna in the world. Therefore, it is most at fault for the fishes' imminent extinction.

Now, what wasn't reported was that Japan has recently been able to fully farm breed this tuna (since 2002) that was previously though to be unfarmable because:

1. The fish spawn eat an insane amount of food
2. It never stops swimming
3. It can only swim forward
4. It is sensitive to changes in light (boatlights can cause it to crash into nets)
5. It has thin skin that causes it to get scratched easily

It's just a bit annoying that news sources failed to mention that Kinki (Kansai) University and the Japanese government have actually been researching on methods to breed these giant fish in captivity since the 1970s, and that to date, they've solved all the above problems and raised the egg to fully grown fish ratio from a measly .1% to 5~6% and have developed important innovations to fish breeding in the process, like raising the fish in open ocean pens with suitable climate and installing light fixtures to prevent the fish from going berserk when a boat with lights on passes by.

Finally, they've also been able to raise the fishes' fatty content, therefore making toro cheaper The same program was also the world's first to breed halibut, and has since expanded to sturgeon (for caviar) in farms.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editoria...2003329854 (The Holy Grail of Fish Farming)
http://www.flku.jp/english/aquaculture/index.html

Edit: In case you're wondering how I ended up posting such a weird article on RR, blame NHK world's documentaries.