Japanese Supermarket Chain Permanently Bans Dolphin Meat
by Mat Thomas, In Defense of Animals

Japan's largest grocery store chain, the Okuwa Supermarket Corporation, has announced that they will no longer sell dolphin meat based on tests that showed it to be poisoned with high levels of mercury, which can cause irreversible brain damage and severe birth defects. Okuwa is a conglomerate made up of not only supermarkets, but also movie theaters, hotels, sports clubs, and amusement parks, and therefore has enormous influence over the country's economy. The company said the ban would be permanent as long as the health risks remain.

While dolphin meat is toxic, it is also procured using cruel methods that have outraged people around the world. Much of the dolphin meat sold in Japanese supermarkets and restaurants is obtained from dolphins who are slaughtered en masse during the drive fisheries that take place in coastal towns every year from October through March, when Japanese fishermen kill more than 20,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales. The fishermen surround pods of migrating marine mammals in their boats and bang on metal rods underwater to disrupt the animals' sonar so they can be herded into shallow bays. They then proceed to slaughter the helpless cetaceans with sharp spears and hooks and drag their carcasses to a nearby processing plant.

One of the centers of the massacre is the town of Taiji, home of the Taiji Whale Museum, where visitors can indulge themselves in a bit of commercialized schizophrenia by going whale watching in a dolphin-shaped boat before dining on dolphin and whale meat in a restaurant displaying posters of ocean cetaceans. In this fishing village that has about 500 fishermen, only 26 participate in the drive fishery. The town was made internationally infamous by the documentary Welcome to Taiji, which shows shocking footage of the bloody slaughter. Documenting the massacre is becoming increasingly difficult, as the slaughter site in Taiji is relatively isolated, and the drive fishermen have taken to erecting barriers made of large tarps to hide their shame. 

The script for Welcome to Taiji was written by Ric O'Barry and his wife Helene. Ric is best known as the trainer of the five dolphins who starred as Flipper in the popular 1960s television show of the same name. In 1970, after Cathy (the main "actor" who portrayed Flipper) died in his arms, he realized that it was cruel to train dolphins to perform tricks for people's amusement, and promptly became one of the world's foremost dolphin advocates and marine conservationists. The O'Barrys were also instrumental in convincing Okuwa to ban dolphin meat from their stores, as was journalist Boyd Harnell, who initiated the random meat sample tests. 

The banning of dolphin meat from Okuwa's stores represents a major step forward in the joint effort to end the drive fisheries. IDA is at the forefront of this international campaign, and has teamed up with the Animal Protection Institute, Earth Island Institute, Elsa Nature Conservatory and One Voice to form the Save Japan Dolphins coalition. To learn more about our efforts, visit SaveJapanDolphins.org.