[Lets hope this comes into fruition. Rick.]
Article: Japanese Losing Their Appetite for Whale Hunt >Pacific News Service > >Japanese Losing Their Appetite for Whale Hunt > >News Feature/Commentary, Christopher Reed, >New America Media, Jan 24, 2006 > >Editor's Note: Japan may use science or tradition to defend its whaling, but >whale meat is almost never on the menu in the nation. > >TOKYO, Japan--Environmental opponents of Japanese whaling in Antarctica, >where recent ocean confrontations have become dangerous, are increasingly >reminded of Oscar Wilde's famous dismissal of the tally-ho types who went >fox hunting in Britain: "The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable." > >Hostility to Japan reached a new level on Jan. 19, when Greenpeace activists >dumped a 20-ton, 56-foot fin whale corpse outside the Japanese embassy in >Berlin. They were making the point that cadavers like this mammal that had >died naturally in the Baltic are available for "scientific research" -- >Japan's rationale for its current four-month, southern-sea hunt for the >warm-blooded ocean titans. > >Up until their whale-dumping protest in Berlin, two boats crewed by >Greenpeace activists clashed with Japanese vessels in Antarctic waters for >three weeks. Deadly harpoons narrowly missed protesters and vessels collided >amid fears of serious injury or death. The New Zealand air force has flown >over the site and the Australian government is closely watching. > >By continuing whaling in the name of science, Japan avoids the International >Whaling Commission's 20-year worldwide ban on the commercial industry. But >this season already, the Japanese whaler Nisshin Maru's slaughter of over >125 Antarctic minke whales, with a target of over 900 in all, has caused 17 >nations to demand that it cease its bloody business. Tokyo has declined. > >Although Norway and Iceland have also done some whaling, Japan earns >conservationists' extra wrath because of what, say activists, is the dubious >nature of another of its claims (rather than racism, which some Japanese >have suggested). Japanese like to eat whale flesh, the argument from Tokyo >goes, and have done so for more than 1,000 years. Unfortunately for its >dwindling enthusiasts, these arguments are easily disproved. > >These days, almost no Japanese under the age of 60 eats whale meat; it was >only consumed on a large scale during shortages after the end of the Pacific >War in 1945. Where it is available today, customers are almost entirely >elitist gourmets with plenty of money -- or misguided nationalists. > >Undisputed research by a British opinion-poll firm in 1999 found only 1 >percent of Japanese acknowledged eating "kujira no niku" -- whale meat -- >even once a month, and 61 percent said the last time they ate it was as >children. My own telephone inquiries at three leading supermarket chains >found not one selling it these days, even canned, and an Internet search of >gourmet restaurants showed it to be rarer than lamb chops in this mainly >fish-eating nation. > >One restaurant in Shibuya, Tokyo, called Kujiraya -- "the whale place" -- >offered five styles of the meat at nearly $60 per person, and individual >steaks at $15 each. In the Shinjuku district at a restaurant called >Taruichi, its owner Takashi Sato acknowledged that his whale meat dishes >were continuing a tradition of his father's, but lost money. Only in the >southern island of Kyushu, Japan's historic whaling location, were >restaurants that offered the dish commonplace. > >A dish available by mail order is whale "bacon" -- the meat is salted, >smoked and thinly cut -- but that can cost about $150 a pound, way above the >choicest beef steak. Eating it raw, sashimi style, costs $5 for one >paper-thin slice smaller than a visiting card. > >McDonald's in Japan, where fish hamburgers are popular, need fear no >competition in taste from the flesh of Balaenopterae. But an element of >nationalism can creep in. Some Japanese, encouraged by the government and >its Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) in Tokyo, which is also the >pro-whaling public relations office, regard opponents as foreign bullies. > >Taruichi's Sato, for instance, proclaimed that opposition to Japanese >whaling was "American culinary imperialism," although the United States was >not among the 17 protesting nations headed by Brazil. Sato added: "Telling >the Japanese not to hunt whales is like telling the British to stop drinking >tea, or denying the French their pate. This is how you start a war." > >Apart from culinary or cultural reasons, the ICR's "science" explanation for >killing Antarctic minkes is vague; the World Wildlife Fund describes it as >"sham." The ICR also admits that the whale meat supplying restaurants is >left over from research -- and last year, 20 percent of the 4,000-tonne >haul, half this year's expected catch, had to be frozen and stored unused. > >One ICR research finding might offer a sounder scientific reason for Japan's >unpopular insistence on continuing to kill whales. The minkes, it states, >eat "three to five times" the marine life caught for human consumption, >including popular Japanese fish dishes such as anchovy, Pacific saury, cod >and walleye pollock, all "commercially important species." > >But as Greenpeace campaigner John Frizell has noted: "As long as opponents >can be presented as international bullies, the Japanese can keep the >controversy going." Perhaps, but not the customers coming. > >PNS contributor Christopher Reed, a former correspondent for the London >Guardian, lives in Japan. > > > > Delete Reply Forward Spam Move... 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