A third-generation longline tuna fisherman in Japan was devastated when his young son told him he did not want to become a fisherman because of all the struggles that his father and other fishermen in their village had to live with; the sushi boom of the past 20 years resulting in the disappearance of the bluefin tuna. In deciding to do something to change the situation, he and 300 other village fishermen agreed to collectively try a three-year experiment and not fish for bluefin tuna during their spawning season. They all sacrificed a lot, believing and hoping that foregoing the spawning season, juvenile tuna would mature and stabilize the population, leading to a sustainable fishery, their lifeblood, and not the forecasted collapse. The Japanese fisheries have rebounded in the last two years.
