TOKYO: Sushi restaurateur Kiyoshi Kimura paid 7.36 million yen (about $70,000) for a 507-pound (230-kg) bluefin tuna in the year’s celebratory first auction at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market on Sunday, just five per cent of what he paid a year earlier despite signs that the species is in serious decline.

Kimura’s record winning bid last year of 154.4 million yen for a 222-kg (489-pound) fish drew complaints that prices had soared way out of line, even for an auction that has always drawn high bids. Kimura also set the previous record of 56.4 million yen at the 2012 auction. The high prices don’t necessarily reflect exceptionally high fish quality.

Environmentalists say growing worldwide consumption of bluefin tuna is leading to its depletion, and that those in charge of managing fisheries for the species are failing to take responsible action to protect it.

Japanese eat about 80 per cent of all bluefin tuna caught worldwide, though demand is growing as others acquire a taste for the tender, pink and red flesh of the torpedo-shaped speedsters of the sea.

Stocks of all three bluefin species — the Pacific, Southern and Atlantic — have fallen over the past 15 years amid overfishing. —AP