Oil spill bad news for bluefin tuna

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss., June 2 (UPI) -- The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could be bad news for the fishing industry in New England, an area where bluefin tuna is one of the most valuable catches.

Scientists are trying to determine what effect the oil gushing into the gulf is likely to have on bluefin eggs and larvae, the Boston Globe reports. BP has been trying to cap its well or contain the oil since April 20, when an explosion on a drilling platform killed 11 workers.

The U.S. government has declared an area around the well off limits to fishing. The no-fishing zone was expanded Tuesday to 76,000 square miles or nearly a third of the Gulf of Mexico.

Bluefin spawn in the gulf. Jim Franks, senior scientist at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, said the eggs and larvae, unable to swim away, will probably die if they encounter oil.

Franks said he and other scientists saw oil sheen during a recent cruise to a tuna spawning area about 50 miles from the BP well.

The tuna, once considered undesirable, now fetch high prices in Japan for sushi and sashimi, and a fisherman can make $3,000 from a single fish. But their numbers have dropped dramatically since the 1970s, probably from over-fishing.