Bluefin tuna sells for £500,000 at Japan auction amid overfishing concerns

Huge fish sells for 74m yen as conservationists call for moratorium to help stabilise plunging Pacific stocks

A bluefin tuna has fetched 74.2m yen (517,000) at the first auction of the year at Tsukiji market in Tokyo, amid warnings that decades of overfishing by Japan and other countries is taking the species to the brink of extinction.

The 212kg fish, caught off the coast of Oma in northern Japan, was bought by Kiyomura, the operator of the Sushi Zanmai restaurant chain, after its president, Kiyoshi Kimura, outbid rivals for the sixth year in a row.