Japanese Government Officials Call Dolphin Meat "Toxic Waste"
by Mat Thomas, In Defense of Animals
Dolphins have earned a reputation as one of the most intelligent species on Earth from scientific research showing their creative problem solving abilities, complex social interactions, use of tools, and (at least in the bottlenose variety) evidence of self-awareness. This is probably why most Americans are appalled by the idea of eating dolphins, but in Japan, dolphin meat is commonly served in supermarkets, restaurants, and even school cafeterias.
However, popular attitudes toward dolphin consumption are changing in Japan, not so much as a result of rising ethical awareness, but because the marine mammal's meat has been found to contain dangerously high levels of mercury and methylmercury—poisons which can cause irreversible brain damage and severe birth defects. Recently, for the first time in Japanese history, elected officials openly condemned dolphin meat as unfit for human consumption, calling it "toxic waste" that seriously endangers the health of those who eat it.
Last month, the newspaper Japan Times ran a story about Junichiro Yamashita and Hisato Ryono, two city council members from the whaling town of Taiji who bought pilot whale meat samples at area supermarkets and brought them to a lab for testing. As it turned out, all of the meat samples were contaminated, and the mercury in one of them was more than 15 times higher than the Japanese health ministry's advisory level, and had 12 times as much methylmercury. This amount of mercury is more deadly than was found in some of the seafood tested during Japan's Minamata poisoning epidemic of the 1950s, which ultimately claimed over 1,700 lives.
The test results shocked the two councilmen so much that they publicly denounced the consumption of mercury-poisoned dolphin meat, especially as it is used in Japan's school lunch programs, since children are particularly susceptible to its ill effects. However, even though the Japanese government is legally bound to take dolphin meat off the market when the mercury content exceeds the official advisory level, they have no plans to comply. Japan's largest supermarket chain, on the other hand, has acted more responsibly by permanently removing dolphin meat from their stores earlier this year.
Most of the dolphin meat eaten in Japan comes from animals captured in the drive fisheries, which take place in towns and villages along the Japanese coast. Every year, fishermen kill more than 20,000 dolphins, porpoises, and small whales by herding whole pods into shallow bays and slaughtering them with spears and hooks, turning the water blood-red. To hide the shameful massacre from the Japanese people and the rest of the world, the fishermen erect visual barriers around bays where drive fisheries are conducted and hire thugs to intimidate investigators.
As a member of the Save Japan Dolphins Coalition, In Defense of Animals is dedicated to ending this brutal "tradition" for good so that dolphins and whales no longer have to suffer such horrifying deaths. The health hazards of dolphin meat consumption, coupled with the global community's growing outrage against its inherent cruelty, is sure to bring this day closer.