The London Daily Telegraph is reporting that an aquaculture company in Japan has raised 50,000 poison free fugu puffer fish at their farm in southern prefecture of Ehime. Fugu have a natural poison defense- a concentration of anhydrotetrodotoxin 4-epitetrodotoxin in their livers or ovaries that is 1,200 times more lethal than cyanide.
Before preparing fugu for the public, chefs undergo long & intensive training; only 35% pass the final test. Many of these chefs aren't happy with the poison free fugu, claiming that most fugu diners are as enitced by the element of danger as they are by the flavor.