Will World’s Hunger for Sushi Cause Tuna Extinction?

It's no secret that Americans loves sushi. What used to be a delicacy savored on special occasions has become a new kind of fast food, available in cafeterias and grocery stores, even baseball stadiums. Our fear of eating raw fish has fully subsided and we now consume so much fish that if we're not careful we may soon run out.

Sushi: The Global Catch, a new film from documentarian Mark Hall takes an in depth look at how the growth of the international sushi industry, which exploded in America in the 1980's, has lead to a dramatic depletion of our oceans fish supply. Hall was inspired to make the film when he witnessed the popularity of Sushi in Eastern Europe during a trip to Warsaw, Poland, and was amazed at how fast sushi's popularity has spread.

Hall interviews sushi chefs from around the world, as well as environmental experts from Greenpeace, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Center for the Future of the Oceans to sketch out the dangerous impact to our oceans when sushi becomes an everyday food choice, "to such a degree that it has the potential to severely impact the ecological balance of the world's oceans leading to a collapse of all fish species."

The greatest fear is that wild caught fish will be completely replaced by farm raised harvested fish, which has already begun with low end sushi. To find out which fishes are most and least sustainable you can download the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch pocket guide at montereybayaquarium.org.