Krista Mahr, “The Hunt for Tuna: A Tough Catch,” Time, November 9, 2009

Describing the world’s tuna trade as “an awesome 21st century hunt,” Mahr’s article explores how “for some species of tuna, the chase is becoming unsustainable.” In 1950, she reports, about 600,000 tons of tuna were caught worldwide while in 2008, that number hit nearly 6 million tons.

Particularly worrisome are the dwindling numbers of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which the World Wildlife Fund estimates could disappear in the Mediterranean as early as 2012, Mahr writes. She quotes a spokesperson for the Center for the Future of the Oceans at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California as saying that Atlantic bluefin tuna has become “the poster child of overfishing worldwide” and that “the hunt is relentless. These are the wolves, grizzly bears, lions and tigers of the ocean. If you take the top predators out, the ecosystem begins to get out of balance.