Time magazine reports that “in September, the European Commission recommended that the E.U. support a temporary suspension of the global trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna . . . . At current fishing rates, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that Atlantic bluefin that spawn in the Mediterranean could disappear from those waters as early as 2012. But the recommended ban was shot down by E.U. member states including Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Spain, France and Italy — all countries with a stake in the trade. ‘The hunt is relentless,’ says Michael Sutton, vice president of the Center for the Future of the Oceans at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. ‘These are the wolves . . . of the ocean. If you take the top predators out, the ecosystem begins to get out of balance.’ On land, when top predators . . . die off, lesser ones like baboons or coyotes flourish, throwing an entire food chain off. The same goes for oceans. Scientists believe stocks of southern bluefin around Australia have likely fallen over 90% since the 1950s and could continue to drop. Of the world’s 19 non-bluefin commercial tuna stocks, half are now overfished or at risk of going that direction, according to the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) . . . .”