Japanese lawmaker calls for dolphin meat ban

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Japanese lawmaker calls for dolphin meat ban

 

03 September 2007

 

 

TOKYO - A lawmaker in a Japanese town notorious overseas for hunting dolphins

called today for a ban on the meat in school lunches, saying it has high levels

of mercury.

 

 

Taiji, a port town in western Wakayama prefecture, has kept up a four-century

tradition of herding thousands of dolphins and whales a year into shallow coves,

where they are speared to death.

 

 

Taiji city assemblyman Junichiro Yamashita has broken ranks by opposing the

slaughter - on the grounds that the meat is contaminated with mercury.

 

 

Yamashita said he conducted lab tests last year on dolphin meat sold in

supermarkets and discovered mercury levels 10 times higher than allowed by the

government.

 

 

" I had no concrete idea of the extent of the pollution, " Yamashita told the

Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan on a visit to Tokyo.

 

 

" Contaminated dolphin meat was used in school lunches and parents had no idea. "

 

 

Japan is one of the few countries to kill dolphins, considered among the most

intelligent animals, although Peru and some South Pacific islands hunt dolphins

in small numbers.

 

 

The dolphin hunt receives little attention in Japan, which also defies Western

nations with whaling.

 

 

Access to Taiji is sealed off during the dolphin kill. French environmentalist

group One Voice released rare footage in 2004 showing trapped dolphins futilely

trying to escape as the water turned red with blood.

 

 

Yamashita is fighting against the building of a 330 million yen (2.85 million

dollars) slaughterhouse meant for dolphin meat to be distributed throughout

Japan.

 

 

" Not everyone is in agreement with the building, but it's such a small community

that people have a hard time speaking up and saying what's on their minds, " he

said.

 

 

Whaling and dolphin hunting is the major industry in Taiji, a town of 3,500

people.

 

 

Yamashita said local schoolchildren ate dolphin meat two to three times a month.

 

 

He said that while Taiji was not polluted, the dolphins most likely fed off

mercury-tainted fish in adjacent waters.

 

 

But the city has largely snubbed him, he said.

 

 

" I stressed to the town council to make safety checks of dolphin meat, " he said,

" but they did not take my proposal seriously. "

 

 

AFP