24 October 2008
Japan's whaling town residents have dangerously high levels of mercury
)Published on October 24th, 2008 @ 01:27:16 pm, using 1558 words, 6265 views
First of all... a million thanks to all readers who shared their thoughts regarding my previous posted blog topic 'A Barbaric Whale and Dolphin Killing in Denmark… A TRUTH! and FICTION!' courtesy from other internet source. I was really surprised of the massive response and comments that I received from different people over the net for the past few days since I posted the blog, thanks for the support and I really appreciate it.
To others who haven't read yet please click this link 'A Barbaric Whale and Dolphin Killing in Denmark…' and you are free to share and throw some violent reactions with us =)
Upon reading some other blogs from CDNN, another interesting news/article and a follow-up blog that might be answer to stop or maybe lessen the killing of whales and dolphins. Have a look and see what I've got. By the way... sorry for the others who loves to eat dolphin meat for this disgusting article.
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Written by: JUSTIN McCURRY? - CDNN
TAIJI, Japan (23 Oct 2008) — Japanese diners who enjoy tucking into dolphin meat are putting their health at risk, as well as courting international condemnation.
A new study by two Japanese universities found that residents of Taiji, a whaling town on the Pacific coast, who frequently ate the meat of pilot whale - a member of the dolphin family - have mercury levels 10 times the national average.
The hair of three tested residents contained quantities of mercury higher than 50 parts per million [ppm], a level that can lead to neurological problems.
Researchers from the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido and Daiichi University's College of Pharmaceutical Studies tested hair samples from 30 men and 20 women from the town between last December and July this year.
The average mercury level among the men was 21.6 ppm and 11.9 ppm among women - both about 10 times the national average. Three men with dangerously high levels of mercury said they ate pilot whale meat more than once a month.
Tetsuya Endo, a member of the research team, said the residents faced no immediate threats to their health but suggested they cut back on their dolphin and whale meat consumption, according to the Kyodo news agency.
Mercury levels halved among people who stopped eating the meat for two months.
Last year a study of dolphin meat served in school lunches in the Taiji area revealed mercury levels 10 to 16 times higher than the health ministry's accepted level of 0.4 ppm.
The latest warnings come as the town, about 280 miles west of Tokyo, begins its annual dolphin cull.
Local fishermen are expected to slaughter around 2,000 of the estimated 20,000 dolphins that will be killed in Japanese coastal waters between now and April.
The hunters bang on metal poles to drive pods of dolphins into secluded coves, where they are speared and hacked to death. The few that survive are sold to aquariums in Japan, Europe and the US.
Despite international condemnation of the culls, the people of Taiji, where coastal whaling is said to stretch back 400 years, claim the local economy would collapse if coastal whaling and dolphin hunting were banned.
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Additional Source:
In Taiji, the fishermen say that dolphin tastes like venison or beef. But eaten raw with a dab of ginger and soy sauce, the glistening dark flesh resembles liver with a coppery aftertaste that lingers on the roof of the mouth long after you’ve chewed it past your protesting taste buds. The ripe, tangy smell stays longer. “I hate cutting up dolphin,” says Motohata Toshihiro, who runs a nearby whale-meat shop. “The stink stays on you for days, even after several baths.”
Dolphin-hunting season has arrived again in this sleepy harbor town at the tip of the Kii peninsula south of Kyoto. Since October, perhaps 2,000 small whales and striped, bottlenose, spotted and risso’s dolphins have been slaughtered for meat that ends up on the tables of local homes and restaurants and in vacuum-packed bags in supermarkets. By the end of March, 1,000 more will go the same way, part of what is probably the largest annual cull of cetaceans – about 26,000 around coastal Japan according to environmentalists -- in the world.
Six hours from Tokyo and accessible only via a coastal road that snakes through tunnels hewn from dense, pine-carpeted mountains, Taiji for years escaped the prying eyes of animal rights activists, but the isolation has been abruptly ended by the Internet and the cheap rail pass. A steady trickle of foreign protestors – most Japanese people know little about the tradition -- now arrives in the rusting town square to cross swords with local bureaucrats and the 26 fishermen who run the hunt.
As Taiji’s notoriety has grown, fueled by gruesome videos of the dolphin kill posted on YouTube? and by celebrity criticism from Joaquin Phoenix, Ted Danson and other high-profile environmentalists, tensions have sharpened. Protestors have repeatedly clashed with the fishermen. Nets and boats have been sabotaged, activists arrested and several environmental groups have been effectively banned from the town.
Foreigners now almost inevitably mean trouble, especially when they come with cameras; locals speak with special venom of a BBC documentary that they say depicted them as barbarians. “One fisherman told me if the whalers could kill me, they would,” says the best-known protestor, Ric O’Barry, who once trained dolphins for the 1960’s TV series ‘Flipper.’ “But I always try to stay on the right side of the law. If I get arrested, I’m out of this fight.”
Around Taiji and in the nearby towns of Kii-Katsuura and Shingu, whale meat has been eaten for hundreds of years, claim local officials. Restaurants and shops offer dolphin and whale sashimi and humpback bacon, along with tuna and shark-fin soup. A canteen next to the Taiji Whale Museum, where trained dolphins and small whales perform tricks for tourists, sells Minke steak, sashimi and whale cutlets in curry sauce in a room decorated with posters of the 80 or so ‘cetaceans of the world’: whales, dolphins and porpoises.
According to local wholesaler Mizutani Ikuo, dolphin meat sells for about 2,000 yen (about US$16) a kilo, cheaper than beef or whale. Unlike most Japanese children, who have no idea what whale tastes like, Taiji kids know their cetaceans. “I don’t like the taste of dolphin because it smells,” says 9-year-old Utani Rui. “I prefer whale.” Inside the museum, out-of-towners are often stunned to learn of the local tradition. “I’m shocked,” says Shibuya Keiko from Osaka. “I couldn’t imagine eating dolphin. They’re too cute.”
The hunts are notoriously brutal and blue tarpaulin sheets block the main viewing spots overlooking the cove where the killings take place to prevent picture-taking. Beyond the cove, a small fleet of boats surround a pod of migrating dolphins, lower metal poles into the sea and bang them to frighten the animals and disrupt their sonar. Once the panicking, thrashing dolphins are herded into the narrow cove, the fishermen attack them with knives, turning the sea red before dragging them to a harbour-side warehouse for slaughter.
The fishermen, who consider dolphins just big fish, like tuna, are bewildered that anyone would find this cruel, dubbing the weekend protestors ‘extremists.’ “If you walked into an American slaughterhouse for cows it wouldn’t look very pretty either,” says one, who identifies himself only as Kawasaki. “The killing is done in the open here so it looks worse than it is.” Most are descended from families that have been killing and eating the contents of the sea around Taiji for generations and reject arguments that dolphins are ‘special.’ Says Kawasaki: “They’re food, like dogs for the Chinese and Koreans.”
A 1994 statement [www.furcommission.com/resource/perspect3.htm] by Taiji Mayor S. Hamanaka directly addressed environmentalists in making the case for tradition and the legitimacy of the whale hunt:
We believe we know more about our own sea in Taiji than anyone who lives hundreds or thousands of miles away from us. We also believe we are more concerned with its protection and assume more responsibilities than anybody else in the world. We are sure that the same view is shared by Alaskan Eskimos, Faroese, Greenlanders, Icelanders, Norwegians, and Russians in Chukotka as well. We hope many environmentally concerned people in the industrialized nations will understand our views and trust us as rational and humane people, and stop making whaling a "scape goat" of the environmental crusade and making inhumane attacks on whaling people.”
O’Barry claims, however, that he was told in private by town officials that tradition is not the real reason for the hunts. “It’s pest-control; they’re over-fishing and want to kill the competition for the fish. That’s unacceptable. These animals don’t have Japanese passports, they belong to the world. They’re just trying to get around this town and these 26 guys.” He calls the town ‘schizophrenic.’ “It’s as pretty as a 1950s postcard and the people are so friendly, but this secret genocide takes place every year.”
The schizophrenia is sharpest, say activists, in the Taiji Whale Museum, where tickets for “whale-watching trips” in dolphin-shaped boats are sold while the non-performing animals bump up against each other in a tiny concrete pool. Trainers here help sort the ‘best-looking’ dolphins from the kill and train them for use in circuses and aquariums across Asia and Europe.
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