Here, for over 14 or 15 years, we've actually brought in both bluefin and yellowfin in captivity.

the unwieldy beast with two fins.

Humpback whale has scalloped edges on its flippers.

Humans, without fins 90 meters, 3.5 minutes.

Now, finning is the act of taking a shark, cutting the valuable fins off and throwing the live animal back in the water.

So we can save the bluefin tuna.

We've actually taken a sliver of the ocean, put it behind glass, and we together have put bluefin tuna and yellowfin tuna on display.

Bluefin are pursued wherever they go there is a gold rush on Earth, and this is a gold rush for bluefin.

He's sort of a Homer Simpson with fins.

He gets finned, and then he gets thrown overboard.

That's the size they have to be to protect the bluefin tuna.

Bluefin are warmblooded like us.

Bluefin have two populations one large, one small.

Here's a dolphin where the fin's been re attached.

Some of them were dolphin liver. Some of them were dolphin blubber.

Bluefin are in cave paintings in France.

Now bluefin, in general, goes to one place Japan.

Meanwhile, Ernest finds his fins on the internet.

That's one of our bluefin at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

I doubt anyone has seen a giant bluefin feed.

It's got light organs on its belly that are flashing, fin lights.

The tuna team from TOPP has done the unthinkable three teams tagged 1,700 tunas, bluefin, yellowfin and albacore all at the same time carefully rehearsed tagging programs in which we go out, pick up juvenile tunas, put in the tags that actually have the sensors, stick out the tuna and then let them go.

This is probably the biggest threat to sharks worldwide it is the finning of sharks.

Now, bluefin were revered by Man for all of human history.

It's hard to study a bluefin on its turf, the entire Pacific realm.

I've been fascinated for a lifetime by the beauty, form and function of giant bluefin tuna.

But it's a lion of the sea. It's a top predator.

They used to use the flesh as well for fertilizer and also would fin the sharks.

I do three or four strips after that where we explore the finning issue and the shark fin soup issue.

You've got pole caught yellowfin tuna here comes from sustainable stocks.

The species of fish landed include blue tang, doctor fish, parrotfish, grunts, triggerfish, snappers and groupers.

For that, bluefin have been given a status equivalent to tigers, to lions, to certain African elephants and to pandas.

Am I sitting down in a steakhouse to a 16 ounce portion of this?

The silvertips are the one with the white edges on the fin, and there're also gray reef sharks and some hammerheads off in the distance.

And everything from the kidney, to the testes, to the back bone, to the fin muscle to I think that ís pretty much the whole fish is eaten.

And what you're trying to look at is the males have claspers, which kind of dangle out behind the back of the shark.

It flies through the ocean on its pectoral fins, gets lift, powers its movements with a lunate tail.

And every single day these tuna, bluefin like this, are stacked up like cordwood, just warehouse after warehouse.

We're still killing bluefin tuna truly endangered and much more valuable alive than dead.

A recent report has found that industrial longline fishing has contributed to the decline of oceanic whitetip and silky shark species by 90 99 percent in the Gulf of Mexico.

When wrapped around limbs and fins, it can cause circulation loss and amputation, especially as the animal grows.

The California sea lion takes the Molas as soon as they come into the bay, rips off their fins, fashions them into the ultimate Frisbee, Mola style, and then tosses them back and forth.

This is the oceanic whitetip shark, an animal that is considered the fourth most dangerous species, if you pay attention to such lists.

The European population and North African the Eastern bluefin tuna is fished at tremendous levels 50,000 tons over the last decade almost every year.

And they'll put their fins out and their eyes go in the back of their head, and the fish come up and they just clean, clean, clean because the Molas, you know, there's just a smorgasbord of parasites.