'Taiji officials: Dolphin meat 'toxic waste'
Special to The Japan Times. Take action see http://www.savejapandolphins.org/takeAction.html
For what is believed to be the first time anywhere in Japan, elected officials have openly condemned the consumption of dolphin meat, especially in school lunches, on grounds that it is dangerously contaminated with mercury.
In an exclusive interview with The Japan Times held in Kii Katsuura, Wakayama Prefecture, on July 19, Assemblymen Junichiro Yamashita, 59, and Hisato Ryono, 51, from the nearby whaling city of Taiji said they had found extremely high mercury and methylmercury levels in samples of meat from pilot whales killed inshore by Taiji hunters and put on sale in that locality.
The pilot whale, or "gondo" (Globicephala macrorhynchus), is the largest of the dolphin family of small cetaceans. This species is among some 2,300 dolphins slaughtered annually in Taiji, after the mammals are herded in "drive fisheries" into small coves, where they are speared and hacked to death. Similar hunts elsewhere in Japan are estimated to account for at least another 20,000 small cetaceans annually.
The Taiji assemblymen, who are both independents, also condemned the growing practice of feeding this meat to children in their school lunches — describing it as no less than "toxic waste."
The random samples tested by the two assemblymen were bought at supermarkets in Taiji and nearby Shingu, and were similarly sourced to the meat served to children in whale-meat lunches at Taiji schools. Such lunches may also have been served in schools in other prefectures, the Taiji officials said.
In fact, the dolphin levels were higher than some of the mercury-tainted seafood tested during the tragic Minamata mercury-pollution disaster of the 1950s, according to Dr. Shigeo Ekino of Kumamoto Medical Science University in Kyushu. In that episode, thousands were sickened, disabled or died in the toxic chemical disaster.
Ekino is famous for his breakthrough study of brain specimens from deceased Minamata disease victims that reveals how even low levels of methylmercury can damage or destroy neurons.
After they received the test results, the Taiji lawmakers, anxious about the possible toxic effects of pilot-whale meat consumed by local schoolchildren, quickly contacted Masahiko Tamaki, an official of the Wakayama pre-fectural health section, and showed him the test results from their samples.
Despite the Taiji pair's urgent health concerns, however, Taiji Mayor Kazutaka Sangen plans to build a new slaughterhouse for processing meat from pilot whales and other dolphins caught during globally condemned drive fisheries there.
He also wants to expand the provision of school lunches containing pilot whale meat.
Ryono said, "We may not be able to prevent the building of a new slaughterhouse, but we will continue to appeal to Taiji people not to use dolphin for school lunches."
Meanwhile, concern over 12 dolphins currently in "capture pens" in Taiji is mounting as the mammals await imminent shipment to a dolphin aquarium in the Dominican Republic. This has prompted Yamashita and Ryono to write an urgent letter to Max Puig, environmental minister of the Dominican Republic, protesting importation of the dolphins, saying his environmentally friendly island state would be accepting "toxic waste."
Award-winning U.S. neurologist David Perlmutter echoed Ekino's sentiments in a telephone interview, saying, "I totally agree with Dr. Ekino when he said everyone should avoid eating dolphin meat — the consumption of dolphin meat is a profound health risk for humans."
In a terse e-mail sent to this correspondent, Endo said, in reference to dolphin meat, "It's not food!"
Despite this hard data, government authorities have consistently displayed a sense of apathy toward these matters, and what many informed commentators regard as dangerously cavalier attitudes in dealing with urgent health issues affecting their citizens.
In particular — despite unequivocal scientific test results — it has failed to require the posting of warning labels for consumers of dolphin meat.
Yamashita and Ryono believe many people in Japan are unaware of the (health) problems related to consuming dolphin meat, and they say they want to educate people through an Internet blog currently posted by the Save Japan Dolphins coalition, an international conservation group.
But it would be a lot more straightforward if this issue was addressed in a more open and accountable way by officials.
Perhaps the two courageous assemblymen may have sounded the final death knell to Japan's dolphin slaughter by focusing the spotlight on the toxic products of this butchery.
But how many Japanese may already be adversely affected, so many years after the danger of this cruel trade has been known?
The Japan Times
