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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: 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