Mercury in Japan’s Whale Meat
John Tibbetts
John Tibbetts
- In Japan cetaceans are eaten (whale and dolphin) but recently there have “dangerously high levels of mercury” found in the meats.
- The ones that are higher up on the food chain (toothed whales) consume and retain more pollutants in the body.
- The rising issue is that baleen whale - which is safer - is getting mixed up dolphin - which isn’t.
- This includes samples of dolphin with levels as high a 2.51 ppm when it is supposed to 0.4ppm.
- Killer whales with average total of 46.9 ppm
- For the boiled organs of small cetaceans, heavy metal and mercury contact was an average of 370.00 ppm.
- One meal of whale internal organs can end in death...
- 2002 Japan updated the law demanding all seafoods are to be labelled with a specific name (though there is no penalty for mislabeling).
- In 2003 they limited pregnant women’s consumption to 60-80 grams for one week, and only once every two months.
- Since cetacean consumption is less popular, it is not as much of a concern for the general public...“Yet” says John Tibbetts
South Park Episode "Whale Whores"
At the American style Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, there are different dolphin and whale presentations going on but a stampede of Japanese come and stab the dolphins and whales to death screaming “Fuck you”. Because they “don’t really like dolphins very much, at least not as much as normal people do.” The whole country is represented to share this opinion. Environmentalists are cast as “tree huggers” and then the people who working to stop the Japanese are “not protestors” but “pirates” in the show “Whale Wars”. But when confronted with action, they don’t know how to do anything (just talk...and throw stinky butter...afraid of doing anything illegal). Japanese are cast as barbaric, while everyone is discussing how to fool the public in thinking they are “hardcore” the Japanese harpoon the captain. Stan makes actually does something and their ship blows up - “things actually happen now” is written on magazine covers and the shows popularity skyrockets. Whale Wars show cast is interviewed on Larry King show - though Stan does it to help whales/dolphins, everyone else is convinced it is only for the ratings (thus they resort to violence- which is loved).
Cartmen and Kenny join the movement when the TV show became famous (though they called Stan a “tree hugger” before.
At the American style Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, there are different dolphin and whale presentations going on but a stampede of Japanese come and stab the dolphins and whales to death screaming “Fuck you”. Because they “don’t really like dolphins very much, at least not as much as normal people do.” The whole country is represented to share this opinion. Environmentalists are cast as “tree huggers” and then the people who working to stop the Japanese are “not protestors” but “pirates” in the show “Whale Wars”. But when confronted with action, they don’t know how to do anything (just talk...and throw stinky butter...afraid of doing anything illegal). Japanese are cast as barbaric, while everyone is discussing how to fool the public in thinking they are “hardcore” the Japanese harpoon the captain. Stan makes actually does something and their ship blows up - “things actually happen now” is written on magazine covers and the shows popularity skyrockets. Whale Wars show cast is interviewed on Larry King show - though Stan does it to help whales/dolphins, everyone else is convinced it is only for the ratings (thus they resort to violence- which is loved).
Cartmen and Kenny join the movement when the TV show became famous (though they called Stan a “tree hugger” before.
- Deadliest Catch ship also becomes an enemy (taking views away from their show)
- Whales come to help Stan by taking away the Deadliest Catch crew...(appreciation of their dedication, display of their intelligence)
- Kamikaze come take out the whales that just saved Stan.
- Only the boys survive and are held in Japanese jail after which they find out that the Japanese are angry about Hiroshima because the ones who dropped that bomb and scarred the nation were a dolphin and whale (seen from a photo given to the Japanese from the Americans).
- The boys/America admit that the photo had been altered but the “real” photo is of chicken and cows...“now they are normal like us.”
THE COVE directed by Louie Psihoyos and written by Mark Monroe
This documentary shook me from the inside out. It is something I knew nothing about going into it and came away very upset... Ric O'Barry was the main man of the film - back in the 1960s he was trainer for the dolphins the TV show Flipper. He kept saying things along the lines of how he had built up this industry of dolphin training in about ten years and he had spent the past thirty some years trying to take it down - now that is had become a multi-billion dollar industry. What triggered him was when one of his beloved dolphins died in his arms - for she chose not to go up for breath - essentially committing suicide.
In Taiji they bring in dolphins using a wall of sound and trap them in a cove so that people from aquariums can pick and choose for dolphin supply -worldwide. The rest are slaughtered around the side of the cove where no one is allowed to go and definitely not photograph (shown below, the blood of the dolphins in the water). O'Barry and Louie managed by setting cameras in fake rocks and planting them in the cove at night - literally risking their lives to capture this footage.
23,000 dolphins are killed a year. The weird thing is, not many people eat dolphin meat and no one knows about the cove. Not to mention the dolphin meat is highly toxic due to the workings of the food chain as we now know from Tibbett's article.
The Japanese government convinces the fisherman of Taiji that it is not only their long standing tradition but also pest control so that the Japanese people can eat more fish that these "pests" do not.
Taiji the town hides this horror through whale/dolphin sculptures, museums (that sell the meat as souvenirs), parks and even boat rides in the shape of a whale.
You just have to watch it.
However I do want to say something similar to what is executed in the South Park episode. I do not believe it is fair to call the Japanese alone horrendous and write them out to be the most cruel in the world because they insist on keeping whaling because we do similar horrors against the animals that we consume. I believe that in reality we are past the point of being able to make decisions that are truly "right". There are too many mouths to feed in the world - and that is where the problem originates. Hoorah for ending on a happy note...
This documentary shook me from the inside out. It is something I knew nothing about going into it and came away very upset... Ric O'Barry was the main man of the film - back in the 1960s he was trainer for the dolphins the TV show Flipper. He kept saying things along the lines of how he had built up this industry of dolphin training in about ten years and he had spent the past thirty some years trying to take it down - now that is had become a multi-billion dollar industry. What triggered him was when one of his beloved dolphins died in his arms - for she chose not to go up for breath - essentially committing suicide.
In Taiji they bring in dolphins using a wall of sound and trap them in a cove so that people from aquariums can pick and choose for dolphin supply -worldwide. The rest are slaughtered around the side of the cove where no one is allowed to go and definitely not photograph (shown below, the blood of the dolphins in the water). O'Barry and Louie managed by setting cameras in fake rocks and planting them in the cove at night - literally risking their lives to capture this footage.
23,000 dolphins are killed a year. The weird thing is, not many people eat dolphin meat and no one knows about the cove. Not to mention the dolphin meat is highly toxic due to the workings of the food chain as we now know from Tibbett's article.
The Japanese government convinces the fisherman of Taiji that it is not only their long standing tradition but also pest control so that the Japanese people can eat more fish that these "pests" do not.
Taiji the town hides this horror through whale/dolphin sculptures, museums (that sell the meat as souvenirs), parks and even boat rides in the shape of a whale.
You just have to watch it.
However I do want to say something similar to what is executed in the South Park episode. I do not believe it is fair to call the Japanese alone horrendous and write them out to be the most cruel in the world because they insist on keeping whaling because we do similar horrors against the animals that we consume. I believe that in reality we are past the point of being able to make decisions that are truly "right". There are too many mouths to feed in the world - and that is where the problem originates. Hoorah for ending on a happy note...
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