Mercury poisoning may save whales

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

 

 

Mercury poisoning may save whales

 

TAIJI--Three days after Christmas 2006, a long-anticipated

confrontation between the two-ship fleet of the Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society and the Japanese whaling fleet inside the

International Whaling Commission-designated Southern Oceans Whale

Sanctuary had yet to develop--but Ric O'Barry took the fight against

Japanese whaling right into Japanese supermarkets, and on Boxing Day

2006 scored a second round knockout against the Taiji coastal whalers.

Taiji coastal whaling little resembles high seas whaling.

Instead of shooting great whales with harpoon guns and butchering

them aboard the factory ship Nisshin Maru in the name of scientific

research, the coastal whalers drive small whales into shallow water

where a few are selected for sale to marine mammal parks.

The rest are hacked, stabbed, hanged, and even butchered

alive with chainsaws, in a frenzied massacre of marine mammals

rivaling the violence of seal-clubbing in Atlantic Canada and

Namibia, and the comparable whale killing conducted in the Faroe

Islands, a Danish protectorate.

The mayhem in each instance vents the frustration of fishers

who blame marine mammals for poor catches in polluted and long

heavily overfished waters, and lack the education to pursue more

lucrative work. While high seas whalers pretend to be scientists,

coastal whalers and sealers have small chance of ever passing for

anything other than chronically underemployed.

Despite the outward differences between so-called " research

whaling " and Taiji, the slaughters both produce meat for Japanese

tables. Both are politically defended as part of the Japanese food

tradition, even though the weight of evidence suggests few Japanese

ate much whale meat before post-World War II food shortages.

Minimata precedent

During that same era, politicians looked away as fishers

marketed catches collected from Minimata Bay, contaminated by

mercury and other toxins discharged for decades from a nearby

chemical processing plant. More than 3,000 people eventually

suffered from symptoms of mercury poisoning that came to be known as

" Minimata Syndrome. " Forty years of lawsuits followed, as the

survivors sought compensation. Mercury pollution has been

politically hot in Japan ever since.

O'Barry happened upon information indicating that the mercury

levels in small whales caught in Japanese waters tend to be

abnormally high. That gave him an idea.

" During our last campaign in Taiji, " O'Barry e-mailed to

ANIMAL PEOPLE, " we visited several supermarkets owned by the Okuwa

Supermarket Corporation. We asked if they would sell imported

American or Australian beef if they knew the mercury levels were at

the same dangerous levels as in the dolphin meat caught in Taiji.

" We also informed the supermarkets that Dr. Tetsuya Endo of

the Hokkaido Health Science University, the Dai Ichi Health Science

University and New Zealand Health Science University conducted a

three-year joint study on mercury levels of dolphin meat from

dolphins caught off Japan--including Taiji, " O'Barry said. " They

found very high levels of mercury in every sample of dolphin meat

that they tested. Their conclusion: nobody should consume dolphin

meat.

" That the Japanese Minister of Health and Welfare has known

about the danger yet chose not to warn the public defies logic, "

O'Barry remarked.

" On December 12th, " O'Barry continued, " we bought a package

of striped dolphin meat from the Shingu Okuwa Supermarket and

delivered it to The Japan Times in Tokyo to be independently tested.

The second random sample tested at 14 times above the advisory level.

The first sample tested was over 4 times the advisory level.

" On December 26, 2006, " O'Barry said, " the Okuwa

Supermarket Corporation, banned the sale of all dolphin meat in all

of their stores. They will decide if the ban is to be permanent

after they test their own samples. The testing will be done in Tokyo

by an independent laboratory. Based on the science we have seen, we

expect the ban on dolphin meat in this supermarket chain to be

permanent. "

Through the end of 2006, only Japan Times reporter Boyd

Harnell had made the mercury testing data accessible to the Japanese

public--in English. O'Barry said he was unaware of any exposure in

Japanese.

But O'Barry anticipated that, " Now that the largest

supermarket chain in Japan has banned the sale of dolphin meat, it

will be very difficult for other markets in Japan to continue selling

it. "

There is some question as to whether much dolphin meat is

actually sold in Japan. Ocean Project director Paul Boyle and Emery

University biologist Lori Marino recently told reporters that they

believe dolphin meat is extensively used for pet food and fertilizer.

" Approximately 23,000 dolphins, porpoises, and other small

whales are slaughtered in Japan every year, " O'Barry said. " Where

is all of this poisoned dolphin meat going? Nobody knows for sure.

Some have speculated that it might be exported to North Korea and

China.

" These countries have a protein shortage and welcome any help

that they can get. But do they know that they are importing

mercury-contaminated dolphin meat? Probably not, " O'Barry

speculated. " We know that a lot of the meat from Japan's so-called

'scientitic whaling' is stored in freezers because there is not

enough demand to sell the stuff. We are not sure where the dolphin

meat is going, " O'Barry admitted, " but are encouraged that the

demand side is drying up.

 

" It's about genocide "

 

" If the Japanese dolphin hunters continue the annual dolphin

slaughter despite the mercury poisoning of the meat, they will be

forced to tell the world the truth--that it is not about culture or

tradition, " O'Barry said. " It's about genocide. The dolphin

hunters are killing the competition while playing the culture and

tradition cards. "

Boyle, a past director of the New York Aquarium, told

Associated Press that there is no scientific support for the belief

that dolphins compete to catch fish of the species that the coastal

fishers want.

" Now, " O'Barry said, " if we could only get the dolphin

trainers and dolphin dealers out of Taiji. Especially the

westerners! "

The Taiji slaughter has been formally opposed by the Alliance

of Marine Mammal Parks & Aquariums and the American Zoo & Aquarium

Association since March 2004, and by the World Association of Zoos

& Aquariums since June 2006, but many trainers from western nations

work for marine mammal exhibition and " swim-with " facilities that do

not belong to the professional associations.

Noted Mark Palmer of Earth Island Institute, " Scientists

calling a [recently caught] dolphin with four fins, instead of the

usual two, a throwback to the evolutionary past. What they are

not saying is that this dolphin was captured in a brutal 'drive

fishery' at Taiji. The dolphin in question is housed in the Taiji

Whale Museum, where visitors can see trained dolphins perform and

then go to the souvenir shop and buy whale and dolphin meat. "

Said O'Barry, " I was there when the 4-finned dolphin was

captured. Aquarium representatives actively helped the fishermen

catch the dolphins to be butchered. "

Campaigning against the Taiji killing are the Elsa Nature

Conservancy of Japan, the International Marine Mammal Project of

Earth Island Institute, and the French organization One Voice.

Meanwhile off Antarctica...

The five-vessel Japanese " research " whaling fleet departed

for Antarctic waters on November 15, 2006, planning to kill 945

minke whales and 10 fin whales within the designated but unguarded

Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary. This will be almost as many as the

1,253 minke whales and more than the nine fin whales that the

Japanese fleet has killed within the sanctuary since 2001.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson told

Guardian environment writer John Vidal on December 11, 2006 that the

newly purchased and renamed former U.S. Coast Guard vessel Leviathan

" is at sea and on the way south to the coast of Antarctica. It looks

as if we will be in a position to confront the Japanese whaling fleet

in the Antarctic during the last week of December, " Watson said.

" This time, with the new ship, " Watson continued, " they

can't lose us. If they can't shake us off, I am pretty confident we

can stop them. If they get violent toward us, I suppose it could

get very physical. We are quite willing to instigate an

international incident over this, " Watson declared.

Watson said earlier that the Sea Shepherds would also have

the Farley Mowat in Antarctic waters, the vessel that was shadowing

the Nisshin Maru on January 8, 2006 when the Japanese factory ship

collided with the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise.

Greenpeace spokesperson Sara Holden, in Amsterdam,

indicated that Greenpeace would again deploy the Arctic Sunrise and

the Esperanza, the same two ships that it used to follow the

Japanese whalers in 2005-2006. As of mid-December, however, the

Arctic Sunrise was in the Baltic Sea, at almost the opposite end of

the globe, and the Esperanza was off Baja California.

--Merritt Clifton

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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