Animal of the Week January 7, 2013 -- HOW MUCH?!

What's the most expensive animal?

Well, unsurprisingly the record stands with a racehorse: the most expensive I could find was The Green Monkey, a 2 year old colt that sold in 2006 for $16 m before going on to earn his new owners around $10 000 on the racetrack and being retired in 2010 having not won a single race. The Green Monkey is now a stud horse, earning his pimps $5000 a pop. The $16 million was generated through a bidding war between two racehorse-owner rivals clearly with more money and pride than sense. Although $16 million is exceptional, it is not so outlandish: a great racehorse can earn several million in its racing career and as stud animals, tens of millions. The owners of unbeaten racehorse Frankel, for example, charge £125 000 (about $200 000) to mate a mare with him (no foal, no fee!), and stud fees of $500 000 are not unheard of.

But outside the world of equestrianism, the week's animal, Thunnus orientalis (Pacific bluefin tuna) has set a new record for fish, selling for $1.7 million. Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co, paid the record sum to buy the 222 kg fish for the company's Sushi-Zanmai sushi chain.

The pacific bluefin tuna is a large predatory fish of the same family as mackerel. They can reach a 3 m in length and weigh up to 450 kg. Their close relatives, the Atlantic bluefin (Thunnus thynnus) can reach up to 4.5 m in length and weigh over 600 kg. Tuna meat is popular for sushi and sashimi in Japan, and thin strips of the the fatty belly meat of bluefin tuna, called O-Toro, can cost $25 each. Some of the world's bluefin tuna stocks are in sharp decline, including the large Atlantic bluefin, but the Pacific bluefin stocks seem to be doing OK for now. But such crazy prices, and the dwindling of other stocks, are only likely to increase exploitation.

The components of the fish are in no way worth the amount paid, but the first fish sale of the year at the Tsukiji Fish Market (the largest fish market in the world) in Tokyo is traditionally a place for people to show off by paying well over the odds. Last year, Kimura set a new record, but paid only about a third of this years price for a slightly larger fish. But who can put a value on the global exposure of Sushi-Zanmai generated by this news story? How much are these inches in AOTW worth?

For those of you about to tuck into a tuna mayonnaise sandwich, it's probably not bluefin, but most likely skipjack. And skipjack tuna, despite being the 2nd most captured fish (by number) in 2009, has fairly healthy stocks. And the most captured fish? The delicious delicious anchovy.
 
Here is an interesting list of some other costly animals. Including a million dollar tibetan mastif. And here is a very striking looking million-pound sheep. I hope none of these tales is made up like that recounted in "poetic" form when sheep were AOTW.

And finally, a former sushi related AOTW