Reply #4: The original article appears to have some... shortcomings. [View All]

[kristopher]

From the comments below the blog entry at your link:

Posted by: Casper | July 24, 2009 9:37 AM

I think some of your anger is misdirected.

I'm all for protecting endangered species, don't get me wrong.

Factual error in your cited article: there is no $600 item on the menu at Masa, the restaurant referenced. A whole meal there, directed entirely by the chef, is $400. Still extreme, but that's the price for 10-15 small dishes. I've only paid it once, and no one offered me a $600 add-on option for bluefin. I believe a price of bluefin tuna sashimi is about $15, as opposed to $3-4 per piece for salmon at a high-quality New York sushi restaurant.

Here's the problem - the fish is endangered because of overfishing and because people think it is delicious, NOT because people who think it is delicious are willing to pay a lot. Let's say you got 90% of the "rich a-holes," an infantile generalization, to stop eating bluefin. This demand drops the imaginary price of $600 a piece down to $100 a piece. The fish would still be worth $50,000, and it would still be sought after in similar numbers. And as the price falls, more of the merely "well-off a-holes" will decide they can pay the imaginary price of $100 a piece, and we'll probably be fishing just as much bluefin. Plus, as I said, the actual price is $15, not $600 or $100 - and a lot of your readers are happy to spend $15 for something they really enjoy every once in a while, not just the a-holes.

I don't mind making fishing bluefin illegal at all - that's a legitimate policy. I don't eat it; I didn't eat swordfish for a decade after being told it was endangered (at $18 per POUND, mind you - it didn't take a super-luxury price to endanger the swordfish. But protecting endangered species is about getting hunting outlawed followed by effective poaching enforcement, not about telling people they're not allowed to pay a lot for legally obtained food they happen to enjoy.