Creature Is a Delicacy in Japan, a Cause in the West

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By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 26, 2008; Page A10

TOKYO, Jan. 25 -- At Ohana, a restaurant not far from the Japanese parliament in central Tokyo, a small plate of chilled raw whale costs $17.50. Grilled whale is $9, while whale in a hot pot goes for $29.

The mammalian flesh for these dishes -- available year-round and served mostly to businessmen older than 40 -- comes from Japan's annual whale hunt, carried out, the government here declares, to advance "scientific" knowledge of cetaceans.

An international ban on whaling grants an exception for scientific hunts, and Japan's whaling fleet uses it nearly every year to harpoon several hundred whales -- killing and dissecting the animals is the best way to study their physiology and learn how to safeguard them, Japanese officials contend. The fleet then brings home thousands of tons of whale meat for sale to grocery stores and restaurants such as Ohana.

The hunt is on again this year in Antarctica's Southern Ocean. It's generating photogenic high-seas confrontations between whaling vessels and eco-activists while severely straining relations between Australia and Japan, longtime allies and major trading partners.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR2008012503171.html?hpid=topnews
Japan is the world’s prime consumer of whale meat.




The Whale's Navy

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) enacted a moratorium on all commercial whaling. Since then, three nations – Iceland, Norway, and Japan – have brutally slaughtered over 25,000 whales under the guise of scientific research and for commercial purposes. The IWC does not have the capacity to enforce the moratorium. Sea Shepherd, guided by the United Nations World Charter for Nature, is the only organization whose mission is to enforce these international conservation regulations on the high seas.

http://www.seashepherd.org/whales/