(JP) Mercury level acute; store pulls dolphin

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http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070111a4.html

 

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007

 

Mercury level acute; store pulls dolphin

Meat sample from Okuwa chain contained levels 13.5

times state limit

 

By ERIC PRIDEAUX

Staff writer

 

A large supermarket chain in western Japan has

permanently discontinued sales of dolphin meat after

learning that mercury levels in a sample purchased at

one of its outlets greatly exceeded government safety

levels.

 

Wakayama Prefecture-based supermarket chain Okuwa Co.

pulled dolphin meat from shelves in late December,

store official Hiroyuki Sakaguchi said Wednesday.

 

The move came days after Boyd Harnell, an

investigative reporter working for The Japan Times,

told store officials that a government-certified food

laboratory found 5.40 micrograms of mercury per gram

of meat in a sample from a striped dolphin fillet he

had purchased at Super Okuwa, a large retail outlet in

Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture.

 

That is 13.5 times the 0.4 micrograms per gram level

permitted by the government.

 

Earlier last year, Harnell had advised Okuwa that a

different laboratory found mercury levels of 1.77 ppm

in another sample of dolphin meat he had bought at the

same outlet. Store officials at that time declined to

remove the meat from their shelves.

 

According to an e-mail to Harnell from another company

official, Okuwa has submitted a sample of meat to a

laboratory for independent confirmation. That result

is pending, and the official said the company will not

publicize the test results.

 

Dolphin meat, popular in certain parts of Japan, often

contains high levels of mercury, and the government

has advised pregnant women to limit consumption over

concerns the toxin may cause birth defects. Critics

say, however, that stores do not put warning labels on

the product.

 

Sakaguchi stressed that dolphin meat was sold only at

" a limited number " of the retailer's 134 stores. He

did not say what role The Japan Times investigation

played in the decision to pull the product.

 

But the decision to discontinue sales follows a series

of reports this paper ran on Japan's annual dolphin

slaughter, which usually numbers in the thousands, and

trade in its meat, including the latest corralling and

killing of the mammals last November in Taiji,

Wakayama Prefecture.

 

Save Japan Dolphins, a coalition of animal-rights

groups from Japan and abroad, hailed the store's move.