Most Japanese eat nether whale or dolphin yet the government and the fishing continue to insist it has a significant place in Japanese culture so these products are heavily promoted. Now it turns out they're unsafe to eat.
Samples tested by Environmental Investigation Agency contained mercury levels up to 47 times higher than recommended safe level
Whale and dolphin meat sold by a large Japanese online retailer contain levels of mercury up to 47 times higher than the government’s recommended safe level, according to a study by the Environmental Investigation Agency.
The UK-based EIA said every one of the 20 samples it tested contained unsafe levels of mercury and called on the retailer to withdraw them immediately. The agency bought 13 of the samples from Yahoo! Japan and the remainder from Japanese supermarkets.
Yahoo! Japan is the only major online retailer in the country that continues to sell cetacean products. Rakuten, Japan’s biggest online retailer, stopped selling whale and dolphin meat after the international court of justice ordered Japan last April to immediately halt its annual whale hunts in the southern ocean.
Rakuten’s move came soon after independent experts in Japan, on behalf of the EIA, exposed the e-commerce company as the world’s biggest online retailer of elephant ivory and whale meat.
Our analysis of cetacean products on sale in Japan has shown them to be riddled with mercury and other pollutants
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