tagged w/ whale meat
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Time...
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Japan
Blood Money: Tsunami Recovery Funds Go to Japan’s Whaling Industry
By Krista Mahr | December 12, 2011
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PHOTO:
Sankei / Getty Images
Japan's research whaling fleet Nissin Maru returns its home at Oi Pier on April 12, 2010 in Tokyo, Japan.
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They’re baaaaaaaccck. Whale hunting season kicked off in Japan last week as three ships set off with a security vessel on their annual pilgrimage to cull hundreds of minke and fin whales in Antarctic waters. And so begins the annual showdown between the whalers and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the tenacious, publicity-savvy anti-whaling group that chases the Japanese fleet around the frigid waters of the sixth continent each winter. The yearly spectacle features scuba-clad activists zipping around in fast boats, lobbing stink bombs at the whaling ships and generally making life miserable for the crew who keep Japan’s 19th-century dream alive. The annual tussle even has its own reality show.
Whaling is not an easy practice to defend these days, particularly when recent polls have shown that 95% of Japanese eat whale meat rarely, if at all. The state-backed industry, which Japan considers its sovereign right to pursue as part of a centuries-old tradition, is under attack both by environmental groups at home and abroad. And yet the government did not do its beleaguered case any favors when it confirmed last week that $29 million of the national post-tsunami recovery fund had been allotted to the whaling industry, including to provide extra security for the whaling fleet.
They had to know that wasn’t going to go down well. Environmental groups in Japan are outraged that the disaster fund is being used to prop up an industry they have been fighting against for years. Though commercial whaling has been banned for decades, Japan is one of a handful of nations that continue their catch with the permission of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) for scientific purposes, culling about 1000 whales annually. “Pouring billions of yen into Antarctic whaling during this time of crisis is downright shameful,” Junichi Sato, head of Greenpeace Japan, told the Guardian last week. “Japan cannot afford to waste money on whaling in the Antarctic when its people are suffering at home.”
Tokyo says the whaling industry needs the support of the fund to get back on its feet after March 11 just like other fishing communities on the devastated northeastern coast of Japan. Port towns like Ayukawa that were built on the back of the multi-million dollar whaling industry were destroyed along with so much else, and, like their neighbors, residents there want to get their businesses back up and running, too. “Many people in the area eat whale meat,” an official from Japan’s Fisheries Agency told CNN. “They are waiting for Japan’s commercial whaling to resume and it is their hope for recovery.”
But padding the industry with reconstruction money is not the end of Japan’s efforts to protect its scientific endeavors. Last year, the government caved in to the pressure Sea Shepherd exerted on its ships and crew and called off the hunt early, with only about one-fifth of its intended catch. On Dec. 9, the Institute of Cetacean Research, the government body that manages the yearly cull, announced that it filed a lawsuit along with shipowner Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha against Sea Shepherd and its founder, Paul Watson. ICR and Kyodo Senpaku are seeking a court order to prevent “SSCS and its founder Paul Watson from engaging in activities at sea that could cause injuries to the crews and damage to the vessels.”
Watson, whose organization is based in the U.S. state of Washington, responded immediately to the news of the law suit. “We have not caused a single injury nor have we been charged with a crime or even reprimanded by anyone for our actions,” he is quoted as saying on the organization’s web site. “This is simply a case of using the courts to harass us. I don’t believe they have a case and I doubt a U.S. court would take this seriously. Unlike Japan, the courts in the United States don’t automatically do what the government demands that they do.” The organization is currently planning to send 88 crew members on three ships to do its yearly battle under the banner of “Operation Divine Wind.”
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Krista Mahr is a correspondent at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @kristamahr. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/12/blood-money-tsunami-recovery-funds-go-to-japans-whaling-industry/#ixzz1gOb4SqJ7
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Japan
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HuffPost Los Angeles...
Ginichi Ohira Pleads Guilty To Selling Whale Meat To Restaurants
Posted: 06/ 3/11 12:52 PM ET
Ginichi Ohira pleaded guilty this week to illegally selling whale meat to Southern California restaurants, reports the LA Times. He now faces 8-14 months in prison, which could include one year of probation and a fine of more than $100,000.
The 50-year old seafood dealer came under the scrutiny of government investigators last year when filmmakers from "The Cove" (a documentary about dolphin killing in Japan), visited The Hump, a Santa Monica restaurant known for its omakase (chef's choice sushi) and adventurous menu. An undercover operation undertaken by federal investigators, marine wildlife advocates, and the filmmakers revealed that the restaurant was serving endangered whale sushi -- a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Ohira pleaded guilty to selling whale meat to The Hump as well as other Southern California sushi restaurants. Sentencing will take place later on this year.
For now, federal prosecutors have dismissed the charges against The Hump restaurant and the chef who served the whale meat, although a U.S. Attorney's spokesman clarified that they could be re-charged in the future, reports the Associated Press.
In what The Hump called "self-imposed punishment," the restaurant closed its doors in March 2010 with this statement: "The Hump hopes that by closing its doors, it will help bring awareness to the detrimental effect that illegal whaling has on the preservation of our ocean ecosystems and species." The Hump's parent company, Typhoon Restaurant Inc., acknowledged their wrongdoing and agreed to pay a fine last year when the scandal broke.HuffPost Los Angeles...
Ginichi Ohira Pleads Guilty To Selling Whale Meat To... more
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Celebrate Compassion
The 5th annual World Go Vegan Week is taking place this year from October 24th through 31st. This week is a celebration of compassion and a time to take action for animals, the environment and everyone's well-being. A plant-based diet not only improves your health, it significantly reduces your carbon footprint and preserves resources for future generations. So please join me in creating a healthy future and go vegan for World Go Vegan Week.
- Emily Deschanel
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IDA would like to encourage people to use World Go Vegan Week to educate their community about the vegan lifestyle as a compassionate, sustainable, and healthy way of eating and living. Promoting veganism through outreach events and the media, we know that our annual World Go Vegan Week is helping make the word "vegan" a household word, universally recognized as meaning love and compassion for all living beings.
Take the Vegan Pledge [http://ida.convio.net/site/PageNavigator/Vegan_Pledge] and pledge to go vegan for the week of World Go Vegan Week, October 24 - 31. Join other compassionate and inspired people that are changing their diet, changing their life and changing the world! Then, hold an event to celebrate you commitment to World Go Vegan Week.
Here are some ways you can celebrate World Go Vegan Week:
Be sure to register your event with us so we can send you flyers, posters and other materials to make you event a success. Contact Hope Bohanec: hope@idausa.org (415)448-0058.
* Plan an event or activity to get people interested in veganism, such as a public lecture, cooking demonstration, feed-in with vegan food samples, leafleting, tabling, library exhibit, or street theater performance. If you serve vegan food at your event, you can get refunded for the cost through the VegFund
* Host a vegan potluck dinner or restaurant outing to show your family and friends that they don't have to sacrifice taste to save animals' lives. Sharing delicious vegan food with others is a fun and easy way to make a difference in the lives of animals and the people you care about.
* Ask your local natural foods store to offer vegan samples for the week. Ask your favorite local food store to offer vegan samples or specials for the last week of October. Let them know that we can send information, posters and materials to help them celebrate World Go Vegan Week.
* Ask veg-friendly restaurants to offer discounts or specials on their vegan food. Encourage restaurants to have vegan specials for the week or to offer a discount for bringing in a veg-curious customer.
* Show a powerful, short vegan video at your next potluck or social gathering. Here's one of our favorites: Vegan video by NonViolenceUnited.org.
* Host a vegan pie-baking contest. You can do this in your own home in a public place. Offer prizes like gift certificates to veggie restaurants or IDA T-shirts. Don't you want to be a judge? Yum!
* Host a Vegan Halloween Party. Have a costume party and have prizes for the best animal costume, most compassionate, and the most vegan creative! Have vegan Halloween candy and treats on hand and go trick-or-treating, offering folks at the door vegan candy and brochures.
* Students: join or start a vegan club in your school and plan an event with your friends that will educate people about the benefits of a vegan diet to human health, animals, and the environment. Write a paper on veganism, hand out vegan literature at a college campus or help get vegan meals into your school's cafeteria. Visit Choice to learn how.
* Have a well-known vegan author or athlete come speak in your community. Host an event where a famous vegan offers an inspiring presentation. Have vegan treats for folks to try. IDA can help you contact the person.
* Send a friend or family member who lives far away a gift certificate to a restaurant in their own town. Visit Happy Cow for reviews of vegetarian restaurants around the country.
* Write a letter to the editor about the benefits of a vegan diet or the cruelties of factory farming, or ask your local newspaper to write a story on the subject.
* If you are religious, or participate in spiritual services or gatherings, look for opportunities to incorporate the vegan message into the discussions. If you participate in study groups, suggest discussion fo the vegan message.
* Visit a farmed animal sanctuary and take a friend who still eats meat. There are a number of farmed animal sanctuaries where you can visit rescued cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, ducks, goats, sheep and rabbits live naturally in peace and harmony without fear of abuse or slaughter. Check out Animal Acres, Animal Place, Farm Sanctuary, Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary, or IDA's Project Hope.
* Encourage a Compassionate Thanksgiving. Since Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks, talk to your community food banks about providing vegan options such as Tofurkys. Consider buying a few Tofurkys, preparing them, and bringing them to your food bank or other similar community dinner. Be sure to check out Gentle Thanksgiving which offers a lot of information and guidance on this special observance.
* Share the ideals of veganism with your community of friends and colleagues by adding this quote to your email signature:"Veganism gives us all the opportunity to say what we 'stand for' iin life -- the ideal of healthy, humane living. Add decades of health to your life, with a clear conscience as a bonus." - Donald Watson
* If you are a part of an animal protection organization, become a presenter of World Go Vegan Week. There are no costs to you for joining us as a co-presenter. All you need is to post the World Go Vegan Week banner on your web site, which links to the World Go Vegan Week web page. Contact Hope Bohanec, for more information: hope@idausa.org or call (415) 448-0058.Celebrate Compassion
The 5th annual World Go Vegan Week is taking place this year... more
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WHALE meat is on the menu at about a sixth of Japan's state-run primary and junior high schools, a survey released today showed.
Of 29,600 public primary and junior high schools nationwide providing lunches for students, 5355 schools served whale meat at least once during the fiscal year to March 2010, the survey by Kyodo news revealed.
In Japan, cooked whale meat was a regular item on school lunch menus in the 1960s and 1970s as the annual supply of the meat reached a peak of 220,000 tonnes. It subsequently fell out of favour, with the supply dwindling to around 1000 tonnes in the 1990s as an international ban on commercial whaling was introduced.
But whale meat has recently made a reappearance on the school lunch table as the country gradually increased its catch of the ocean giants, Kyodo said.
The Institute of Cetacean Research, which carries out whaling in the name of research, sells whale meat to local municipalities for school lunch use at one-third of the market price, it said.
Japan hunts whales under a loophole to an international moratorium that allows the killing of the sea mammals for scientific research but it does not hide the fact that the meat is later sold in shops and restaurants.WHALE meat is on the menu at about a sixth of Japan's state-run primary and... more
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1 year ago
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Residents of Taiji, Japan, have dangerously high mercury levels, probably because of their fondness for dolphin and whale meatResidents of Taiji, Japan, have dangerously high mercury levels, probably because of... more
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March 20, 2010 2:52 a.m. EDT
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- A trendy California sushi restaurant says it's closing after being accused of serving illegal whale meat.
The company that owns Santa Monica's The Hump restaurant had already apologized for the whale meat accusation earlier in the week.
The restaurant's Web site said: "After 12 years doing business in Santa Monica, The Hump will be closing its doors effective March 20, 2010. The Hump hopes that by closing its doors, it will help bring awareness to the detrimental effect that illegal whaling has on the preservation of our ocean ecosystems and species."
The investigation into the eatery began in October when two members of the team that made the documentary, "The Cove" visited The Hump, officials said.
"The Cove," which exposes the annual killing of dolphins at a Japanese fishing village, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary earlier in March.
Armed with a hidden camera, two women from the documentary captured the waitress serving them whale and horse meat and identifying them as such, a federal criminal complaint said. A receipt from the restaurant at the end of the meal identified their selection as "whale" and "horse" with a cost of $85 written next to them.
The women snuck pieces of the meat into a napkin and later sent them for examination to a researcher at Oregon State University. He identified the whale sample to be that of sei whale, prosecutors said.
The meat from whales, considered an endangered species, cannot be sold legally in the United States.
The restaurant, located at the Santa Monica Airport, is known for its exotic fare. Its Web site asks diners to surrender themselves to its chefs for "a culinary adventure ... unlike any that you have previously experienced."
Prosecutors have also charged Typhoon Restaurant Inc., the parent company of the restaurant, and one of its chefs -- Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 45 -- with the illegal sale of a marine mammal product for an unauthorized purpose.
The misdemeanor charge carries a federal prison sentence of up to a year and a fine of up to $200,000 for the company, federal authorities said.
The Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act make it illegal, except under very limited circumstances, to hunt, kill or capture whales and also prohibit trade in the animals or any part of them.
CNN's Sonya Hamaski contributed to this report.March 20, 2010 2:52 a.m. EDT
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- A trendy California... more
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It is sport among black belt sushi eaters here to see just how daring one’s palate can be. But even among the squid-chomping, roe-eating and uni-nibbling fans, whale is almost unheard of on the plate. It also happens to be illegal.
Yet with video cameras and tiny microphones, the team behind Sunday’s Oscar-winning documentary film “The Cove” orchestrated a Hollywood-meets-Greenpeace-style covert operation to ferret out what the authorities say is illegal whale meat at one of this town’s most highly regarded sushi destinations.
Their work, undertaken in large part here last week as the filmmakers gathered for the Academy Awards ceremony, was coordinated with law enforcement officials, who said Monday that they were likely to bring charges against the restaurant, the Hump, for violating federal laws against selling marine mammals.
The sushi sting actually began in October, when the documentary’s associate producer and “director of clandestine operations,” Charles Hambleton, heard from friends in the music industry that the Hump, a highly rated sushi restaurant next to the runway at the Santa Monica airport, was serving whale.
Mr. Hambleton, who has worked as a water safety consultant on Hollywood movies like “Pirates of the Caribbean,” created a tiny camera for two animal-activist associates to wear during a monster session of omakase — a sushi meal in which the chef picks all the dishes.
Video of their meal shows the two activists, both vegan, being served what the waitress can be heard calling “whale” — thick pink slices — that they take squeamish bites of before tossing into a Ziploc bag in a purse.
The samples were sent to Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. Professor Baker said DNA testing there revealed that the samples sent to him were from a Sei whale, which are found worldwide and are endangered but are sometimes hunted in the North Pacific under a controversial Japanese scientific program. “I’ve been doing this for years,” Professor Baker said. “I was pretty shocked.”
Mr. Psihoyos’s team — a far-flung band of activists who use film making to highlight environmental causes — knew they would be together in Los Angeles for the Oscars, and so sting operations two and three were hatched. On Feb. 28, team members split up between the sushi bar and a restaurant table and ordered sushi and communicated via text message with Mr. Psihoyos, who waited in a car in the parking lot. Mr. Psihoyos served as an electronic envoy between the investigators at the sushi bar, who were witnessing the chopping of fish and whale, and those sitting at a table:
“They’re eating blowfish!” read one of the text messages. “Toro and sea urchin, nothing exciting,” another said. “Whale coming now!”
Next waiters identified a meaty course of whale, referring to it at times by its Japanese name, kujira, at a cost of $60, according to a federal affidavit. (The total bill exceeded $600 for two, with very little sake.)
Last week, several federal agents, including one from the Border Patrol and one who speaks Japanese, joined their team. Once again, the chef and wait staff more than once identified the meat as whale, the affidavit said, and it may have been obtained from a Mercedes parked behind the restaurant.
Armed with a search warrant, federal officials on Friday went searching for evidence from the restaurant, including marine mammal parts as well as various records and documents. The possession or sale of marine mammals is a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and can lead to a year in prison and a fine of $20,000.It is sport among black belt sushi eaters here to see just how daring one’s... more
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http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid1873822884?bctid=32634270001
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has just released video footage from a whale hunt that occurred late last month.
Baird's beaked whales are rare, but are exempt from whaling bans since they are still classified as small cetaceans. Around 60 Baird's a year are hunted commercially in northern Japan and sold in Japanese supermarkets. However, tests have revealed extremely high levels of mercury in the meat, which could pose a serious health risk.
-Not only is it dangerous (& extremely stupid) to consume hazardous whale & dolphin products, it is ridiculous that these rare creatures are being slaughtered for the sake of profit & consumption.
-Check out link for more info-http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid1873822884?bctid=32634270001... more
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