Italy is greatly overshooting fishing quotas for bluefin tuna, flouting international agreements and further threatening the endangered species, the World Wildlife Fund said Oct. 7.

A report commissioned by the WWF says Italian fishermen overran their quotas in 2008 and 2007, are using a banned method to track tuna and are underreporting the size of their fleets.

Bluefin tuna is under particular strain in the Mediterranean, where it is hunted for its fatty meat, which fetches top prices on the Japanese market as an ingredient for sushi and sashimi.

According to the report, during the 2008 fishing season Italian fleets caught at least 4,887 tons of bluefin tuna, more than 700 tons above the country's assigned quota. In 2007, Italy overran the quota by more than 1,600 tons, the WWF said.