Species profile
Thunnus thynnus
Atlantic bluefin tuna
LC · Least Concern — Least Concern — low risk, widespread and abundant
About this species
Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is part of the curated SpeciesWatch catalogue and is classified as Least Concern. Bluefin tuna are among the few fish that can warm their bodies above the surrounding water, letting them hunt from tropical to sub-arctic seas. Its recorded population direction is increasing. That is encouraging, but it does not remove continuing pressures or make every population secure.
Habitat, behaviour and ecological role
This profile associates the species with marine, pelagic. These labels summarise environments used during different stages of its life rather than drawing an exact range boundary. They can burst past 70 km/h and cross the Atlantic in as little as 60 days. Its anatomy and behaviour are responses to those environments, while movement can connect distant places requiring different forms of management.
Why this species is at risk
A single bluefin once sold for millions of dollars at a Tokyo fish market — a price tag that makes sustainable management of the species extremely difficult. The catalogue records 2 principal pressures for this profile: Historic overfishing, Illegal fishing. They should not be treated as isolated causes. Habitat change, exploitation, pollution, disease and climate stress can reinforce one another, while the importance of each pressure varies between regions and through time.
Conservation outlook
Fishery management needs enforceable limits, more selective gear, bycatch reduction and coordinated compliance across jurisdictions. Actions need long-term monitoring and revision as evidence changes; a positive intervention in one place does not by itself represent recovery across the species.
Editorial review: 2026-08-21
Threat factors
Known occurrences
Dots are georeferenced occurrence records from OBIS (marine) and GBIF (global), not individual animals and not a complete range map. Up to 500 recent API results are cached; the profile renders at most 500 points.
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