Categories: Asia

200kg Tuna Set For Auction Block in Yilan

Pacific bluefin tuna

In news from Taiwan’s Yilan county, a 200 kg tuna will be auctioned Saturday in what has become an annual battle of the seas pitting fishermen from the east coast with their counterparts in Donggang in Pingtung country in the the south west of Taiwan.

The coveted prize of ‘first bluefin tuna of the season’ goes to the first boat registered in Taiwan bringing home a fish that tips the scales at 180 kg or more after April 1st.

Two weeks ago the same fishing vessel to land the 200 kg giant, the No. 168 Chuan Chang Lung registered in Su’ao in south east Yilan, also netted a 178.8 kg fish – 1.2 kg under the qualifying weight limit.

In a fishing season for the popular delicacy, that runs from April through June as the tuna make their way past Taiwan, a Pingtung registered vessel was this year awarded the ‘first bluefin tuna of the season’ on April 11th, when a huge 254.5 kg bluefin was brought in.

That fish later sold for NT $9,000 per kilogram.

Something of a lesser cousin to a similar new year auction in Japan that makes headlines around the world, the auction tomorrow could still see prices rise as high as NT $9,000 per kg, although the last time an Yilan registered boat claimed the title, in 2019, a 210 kg fish brought in the lower price per kilogram of NT $7,000 – totaling almost NT $ 1.5 million.

Mark Buckton

Mark is a journalism vet of 20 years with most of those years spent in Tokyo, Japan, as a columnist for The Japan Times and numerous other publications. His work has appeared on CNN, in the BBC, NPR, and in several dozen other media forms and publications across five continents.