BP Plc’s oil leak has polluted 140 miles (225 kilometers) of shoreline from Louisiana to Florida. Below the surface, the crude threatens a staple of sushi restaurants from New York to Tokyo: bluefin tuna.
Petroleum gushing from a seabed well in the Gulf of Mexico has caused slicks that overlap one of two spawning grounds for Atlantic bluefin. The adult fish lay eggs in the Gulf in April and May before heading to the North Atlantic to feed.
Tuna, which need clean surface water to spawn, may have been covered in oil while chemicals used to break up the oil may damage their eggs, limiting reproduction, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports in its June 28 issue. Atlantic bluefin are on the World Conservation Union’s endangered list after years of overfishing.
“This is a real blow,” said Bill Fox, managing director for fisheries at WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, which investigates overfishing and illegal catches in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, the bluefin’s other spawning ground. “The oil plus the dispersants are likely to have a huge effect.”
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