Introduction

          Jacques Cousteau believed the the oceans where great resources, but he also believed in their conservation.  His belief was that if a population was kept at a certain level and still fished it could still feed all the people it needed to, instead of overfishing that population and getting temporary gain, but longterm losses.  A foresting analogy is if there is 10,000 pine trees in an area and there are 500 seedlings reproduced each year that would reach adulthood/cutting at age at about 30, and a timber company wants to get maximum gain from that forest.  They could clear-cut it immediately and get 10,000 trees out of it, or they could wait 20 years cutting 500 trees per year and break even.  After that point in time any tree they cut they would be making more profit than they would if they clear cut it.  While this analogy isn't accurate and the figures in it are made up, this same concept applies to the quickly diminishing bluefin tuna populations.  While it is easier for a company to just clear-cut a forest and move onto the next one, the bluefin tuna populations are running out of "forests" to get overfished.  There are ways to have a sustainable and profitable fishing industry, but it would take patience to rebuild the population and cooperation between fishermen all throughout the world to make this viable.
          Already the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna population throughout the Atlantic is declining rapidly.  The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas stated that in 2009 over the past 40 years stocks have diminished by 72% in the Eastern Atlantic and by 82% in the Western Atlantic.  At one time the Greeks and Phoenicians described them as a pest of sorts, found all over their waters.  Now they are extinct in the Black Sea where they once thrived and are endangered throughout the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.