http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fe20100704cw.html

“Despite all our talk of of history, tradition, culture and the need for humans to take food from the sea, though, the one deadly nail that consistently stood out above the rest was the question of pollution. If cetacean meat, and especially the meat and blubber of dolphins taken off the coasts of Japan, is as seriously contaminated with mercury and other harmful chemicals as the evidence indicates, then surely the Japanese government must address this issue and bring it out into the open — either banning sales altogether or insisting on warning labels, depending on the degree of danger to humans.”

Unusually high levels of mercury concentration have been detected in the hair of residents of Taijicho, Wakayama Prefecture, who are known to regularly eat whale and dolphin meat, according to an Environment Ministry research institute.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20100511TDY02T05.htm

http://vimeo.com/9734929

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/03/2010312124947197783.html

copyright Clare Perry/EIA

Once landed, the catch is processed and sold in supermarkets and fish markets across Japan, sometimes illegally mislabelled as “whale meat” to increase its value.

And unwitting consumers are not only being misled as to the source of the meat; like other small cetaceans, Dall’s porpoises carry high levels of a range of dangerous pollutants, including mercury and methylmercury. Some dolphins are so toxic that experts have suggested just one small meal could result in acute mercury poisoning.

London-based campaign group the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) travelled to Otsuchi, in the prefecture of Iwate, to monitor and raise awareness of the hunt in a bid to ensure its grossly detrimental impact on marine conservation and consumer health does not continue to be overlooked.

“Most Japanese people are completely unaware of this hunt – it’s the largest direct hunt of any whale, dolphin and porpoise in the world and is putting these animals at risk while producing hundreds of tonnes of toxic meat for human consumption,” warned Clare Perry, EIA investigator and coordinator of an international coalition of groups concerned about cetacean hunting and related health risks.

In the coastal area of Iwate, large quantities of Dall’s porpoise are sold cheaply, labelled as dolphin. A shop assistant in a supermarket in Yamada told EIA that it was a popular local dish.

However the biggest market for Dall’s porpoises lies in the south of Japan, particularly in the Shizuoka and Kyushu areas. EIA investigators have been told by courier companies transporting Dall’s porpoises to southern Japan that the meat is sold “all over Japan as minke meat”. According to a worker at the company: “It’s no big secret, everyone in the industry knows this”. These findings have been backed by independent DNA analyses. Mislabelling is a direct infringement of Japanese law, but enforcement is non-existent.

Between 2001 and 2007, EIA investigators made 35 sample purchases of Dall’s porpoise meat and blubber in the cities of Hokkaido, Shizuoka, Osaka, Shimonoseki and Fukuoka. Independent testing showed average mercury levels in the products to be 1.57ppm, almost four times higher than Japan’s regulatory limit of 0.4ppm. The highest mercury level of 6.93ppm was found in a sample of porpoise head meat, sold for sashimi.

Scientists have established a strong link between mercury in cetacean products and a variety of human diseases and medical conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, arteriosclerosis, immune subsystem suppression and hypertension. Threats to children include autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

“Despite the overwhelming scientific findings that coastal cetacean products can pose a risk to human health they remain on sale throughout Japan, and are even distributed to some Japanese schools as part of the obligatory school lunch programme,” said Perry.

For at least a quarter of a century, the Dall’s porpoise has suffered the same appalling over-exploitation that caused the collapse and near extinction of so many great whale populations around the world. The IWC is currently in the process of negotiating a ‘deal’ between whaling countries and non-whaling countries – but the fate of these smaller cetaceans is not being considered.

“Countries that claim to be interested in the conservation of cetaceans need to be raising this issue at the IWC,” said Perry. “It is unacceptable that IWC is preparing to give Japan commercial whaling quotas, without addressing its slaughter of up to 20,000 Dall’s porpoises and other coastal dolphins and whales each year.”

 EDITORS’ NOTES

* Since catch records began in the early 1960s, more than half a million Dall’s porpoises have been deliberately killed in Japan’s coastal waters. It is the largest direct hunt of any whale, dolphin or porpoise species in the world.

* The Dall’s porpoise is named after William Healey Dall, who collected the first specimen off Alaska in the late 19th century. Dall’s and all other porpoises belong to a family called Phocoenidae. Like dolphins, they belong to the sub-order Odontocete (toothed whales), which in turn belongs to the order Cetacea, including all whales, dolphins and porpoises.

* Large scale hunting of Dall’s porpoises has taken place in Japanese waters for about 50 years. The average annual kill was between 5,000-10,000 animals during the 1960s and ’70s, but this rose to more than 40,000 after the IWC ban on commercial whaling in 1986. The ban saved many whale species from certain extinction, but unwittingly resulted in a new threat to Dall’s porpoises when Japan’s whaling companies turned to it to replace the minke whales they were no longer allowed to hunt. Dall’s porpoises were also traded to the south of Japan where over-hunting of striped dolphins had left a market demand for dolphin-type meat.

* Based on 1972 World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations, Japan’s Health Ministry (JMHLW) set a consumption limit (PTWI) of 170µg of methylmercury (MeHg) in a 50kg person per week and blanket maximum contamination levels in seafood products of 0.3µg/g (parts per million – ppm) MeHg and 0.4ppm mercury (Hg). However whales and dolphins are excluded from these safety limits.  

* A study published by Japanese scientists in August 2005 analysed 160 samples of small cetacean products sold on Japanese markets for human consumption, including nine samples of Dall’s porpoise meat. The average MeHg concentration over all Dall’s porpoise samples was 1.02µg/g, almost three-and-a-half times the recommended limit.

* Eight Dall’s porpoise blubber products analysed by Japanese scientists commissioned by EIA revealed high PCB levels, with one product purchased in Shizuoka, near Tokyo, having a concentration of 4ppm, a startling eight times higher than the regulatory level of 0.5ppm.

The No More Mercury Poisoning Campaign has launched a new website -  http://suigin-iranai.jp/ - in English and Japanese. The website featuring news, information and an online open letter to Japan’s food safety minister which people or groups can sign up to.

Press Release: 27^th January 2010

Geneva/Tokyo: This week the World Health Organisation WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are holding an expert consultation on the risks of fish consumption and – encouraged by a coalition of environmental groups – for the first time the health risks associated with consuming contaminated meat and blubber from whales, dolphins and porpoises (cetaceans).

Within the last decade numerous scientific findings have been published, clearly showing extremely high levels of mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other toxic substances in cetacean products on sale for human consumption. During this period scientists have also found a strong correlation between the consumption of cetacean meat with a variety of human diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, arteriosclerosis, immune subsystem suppression, and hypertension. Threats to children include autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

In Japan, up to 20,000 toothed cetaceans in addition to over 1,000 large baleen whales are annually hunted and consumed. Toothed cetaceans mainly feed at the top of a complex marine food web and therefore may accumulate particularly high levels of toxic substances. It has also been found however that minke whales, a filter feeding species which typically feeds lower down the food chain, can also carry PCB and mercury levels above Japan’s own safety limits.

“Despite the overwhelming scientific findings that cetacean products can pose a risk to human health they remain on sale throughout Japan and are even distributed to some Japanese schools as part of the obligatory school lunch programme” states Clare Perry of the Environmental Investigation Agency and coordinator of an international coalition of groups concerned about cetacean hunting and related health risks.

Sakae Hemmi of the Japan based NGO Elsa Nature Conservancy said: “It is time for our government to stop the sale of cetacean products and properly inform consumers about these health risks. So far up to 90 percent of the Japanese citizens are not aware of these risks.”

Only recently Japanese scientists published new findings that show mercury levels in citizens of the Japanese whaling town Taiji up to 25 times higher than Japan’s average. In November a joint letter by Japanese consumer and food safety groups and international conservation organisations called on Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Minister of Consumer Affairs and Food Safety to prohibit the sale of polluted cetacean products.

———————————-    ENDS   ————————————

For further information or images, contact:

Sakae Hemmi, ELSA Nature Conservancy, Japan

chimarin@mtj.biglobe.ne.jp, Tel. +81-29-851-1637

Clare Perry, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)

clareperry@eia-international.org Tel: +34 971510046 / +34 664348821

Dr. Sandra Altherr, Pro Wildlife

Sandra.altherr@prowildlife.de  Tel: +49 89 81299-507

Sigrid Lueber, President OceanCare,

slueber@oceancare.org Tel: +41 79 475 2687

Dr. Birgith Sloth, Society for the Conservation of Marine Mammals

Beeco11@yahoo.dk , Tel: +45 20890439

Andy Ottaway, Campaign Whale

andyo@campaign-whale.org, +44 1273 471403

Sue Fisher, Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society

sue.fisher@wdcs.org, +1 508 746-2522

Editors Notes

Evidence of the contamination of toothed whale, dolphin and porpoise products in Japan is widely available, including the following publications:

Endo, T. and Haraguchi, K. 2010. High mercury levels in hair samples from residents of Taiji, a Japanese whaling town. Marine Pollution Bulletin in press.

Endo, T., Hotta, Y., Haraguchi, K., and Sakata, M. 2003. Mercury Contamination in the Red Meat of Whales and Dolphins Marketed for Human Consumption in Japan. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2003, 37 (12), pp 2681–2685. Available at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es034055n

Poisonous Policies – Japan’s failure to stop the sale of polluted whale, dolphin and porpoise products. Available in Japanese and English at http://www.eia-international.org/campaigns/species/cetaceans/reports/

Toxic Menu – Contamination of whale meat and impact on consumers’ health. Available at www.prowildlife.de/sites/default/files/toxic menue_lowres.pdf

Mercury Contamination is Threatening Our Dining Table – An Investigative Report. Available in English and Japanese, www.elsaenc.net/

Link to AERA magazine article (subscription): http://www.aera-net.jp/latest/backdetail.html?id=111

Link to open letter (English): http://www.eia-international.org/files/reports187-1.pdf  

Link to the open letter (Japanese): http://www.eia-international.org/files/reports188-1.pdf

Press Release: 24^th November 2009

A worldwide alliance of environmental and consumer organisations today called on the Japan’s new government to take urgent action to stop the hunt of toothed cetaceans and ban the sale of contaminated whale, dolphin and porpoise products for human consumption in Japan.

Japan sets quotas for around 20,000 toothed cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises and toothed whales) to be caught in Japanese coastal waters each year, with the products sold across Japan. Feeding at the top of the ocean food chain, these animals are highly contaminated with mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other toxic substances.

The highly acclaimed documentary ‘The Cove’ has recently put the spotlight on Japan’s controversial dolphin hunts in Taiji with unprecedented Japanese media coverage. However, most reports have failed to mention the levels of mercury typically found in dolphin and other toothed cetacean products. For decades scientists have found alarmingly high levels of mercury and other pollutants in cetacean products on sale in Japan. Concentrations in some samples have exceeded Japan’s own safety limit for mercury by up to 5,000 times, putting consumers at serious risk.

Clare Perry of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said: “People in Japan are not aware that around 15,000 dolphins, porpoises and small whales are killed in Japan’s coastal waters each year for food products. Some of these animals are so polluted that experts have suggested that just one small meal could cause acute mercury poisoning. Legislation to stop the hunts and ban the sale of contaminated cetacean products is urgently required.”

Long-term exposure to mercury is known to cause neurological disorders (with impacts on reaction time, attention span, language and memory), an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, arteriosclerosis, immune subsystem suppression, and hypertension. Threats to children include autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – despite this, toothed cetacean products are still distributed to some schools in Japan as part of the obligatory school lunch programme. 

Sakae Hemmi of the Japan based NGO Elsa Nature Conservancy said: “Our latest research indicates that 90% of people are not sufficiently informed about the high levels of toxic substances in dolphin products. Until legislation exists to ban the sale of contaminated cetacean products, retailers need to put warning labels on all whale, dolphin and porpoise products.”

Japan’s National Institute for Minamata Disease (NIMD), an offshoot of the Environment Ministry, has recently collected more than 1000 hair samples from citizens of Taiji to analyse the mercury content, with initial results indicating significantly higher levels than the national average. Leading Japanese magazine AERA commented that the examination failed to include standard established tests for Minamata disease and questioned the ability of the Environment Ministry to carry out an independent study.

An open letter from the alliance of organisations, which includes more than ten Japanese consumer and food safety groups, calls on Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his Minister of Fisheries to refrain from setting any future catch quotas for toothed cetaceans. The letter further calls on the Ministry of Health to prohibit the sale of polluted cetacean products and the newly established Consumers Affairs Agency to expedite the necessary action and legislation.  

For further information or images, contact:

Clare Perry, Senior Campaigner, EIA

clareperry@eia-international.org Tel: +34971510046 / +34678064420

Dr. Sandra Altherr, Pro Wildlife

Sandra.altherr@prowildlife.de  Tel: +49 (0) 89-81299-507

Sigrid Lueber, President OceanCare,

slueber@oceancare.org Tel: +41-79-475 2687

Dr. Birgith Sloth, Society for the Conservation of Marine Mammals

Beeco11@yahoo.dk , Tel: +45 20890439

Editors Notes

Evidence of the contamination of toothed whale, dolphin and porpoise products in Japan is widely available, including the following publications:

Endo, T., Hotta, Y., Haraguchi, K., and Sakata, M. 2003. Mercury Contamination in the Red Meat of Whales and Dolphins Marketed for Human Consumption in Japan. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2003, 37 (12), pp 2681–2685. Available at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es034055n

Poisonous Policies – Japan’s failure to stop the sale of polluted whale, dolphin and porpoise products. Available in Japanese and English at http://www.eia-international.org/campaigns/species/cetaceans/reports/

Toxic Menu – Contamination of whale meat and impact on consumers’ health. Available at www.prowildlife.de/sites/default/files/toxic menue_lowres.pdf

Mercury Contamination is Threatening Our Dining Table –An Investigative Report. Available in English and Japanese, www.elsaenc.net/

Link to AERA magazine article (subscription) -  http://www.aera-net.jp/latest/backdetail.html?id=111

Link to open letter (English) – http://www.eia-international.org/files/reports187-1.pdf

Link to the open letter (Japanese) - http://www.eia-international.org/files/reports188-1.pdf

The organisations supporting this call are listed below:

Advocates for Animals, UK

All Life in a Viable Environment (地球生物会議), Japan

Animal Welfare Institute, USA

Blue Voice.org, USA

Campaign Whale, UK

Campaigns Against the Cruelty to Animals (CATCA), Canada

Canadian Marine Environment Protection Society, Canada,

Cetacean Society International, USA

Cocoon(コクーン), Japan

Consumers Union of Japan(日本消費者連盟), Japan

Dolphin Connection, USA

Dyrenes Venner, Denmark

Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project, USA

Eastern Caribbean Coalition for Environmental Awareness (ECCEA)

Elsa Nature Conservancy (エルザ自然保護の会), Japan

Fundacion Cethus, Argentina

Happy Tail (ハッピーテイル), Japan

Harmonics Life Center (ハーモニクスライフセンター), Japan

Humane Society International

Institute of Biodiversity in Japan (いきもの多様性研究所), Japan

In Defense of Animals (IDA), USA

International Fund for Animal Welfare

LegaSeaS International, USA 

Lokahi (ロカヒ), Japan

Lunta no Niwa (るんたのにわ), Japan

Marine Connection, UK

MEER. e.v., Germany 

National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA), South Africa

OceanCare, Switzerland

Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), USA

Orca Network, USA

Pacific Whale Foundation, Hawaii, USA

PangeaSeed (パンゲアシード), Japan

Pro Wildlife, Germany

Project Jonah, New Zealand

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA)

Save Japans Dolphins Coalition

Society for the Conservation of Marine Mammals (GSM), Germany  

Society for the Conservation of Marine Mammals, Denmark

Tethys Research Institute, Italy

The Whaleman Foundation, USA

Tulsi, Dog & Vege-restaurant (トウルシー), Japan

NPO Uzu (うず), Japan

Warabe Mura (わらべ村), Japan

Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), UK

World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), UK

Keisuke Amagasa(天笠啓祐): NO! GMO Campaign(遺伝子組み換え食品いらない！キャンペーン), Japan

Harukichi Onoduka(小野塚春吉): The Japan Scientists’ Association(日本科学者会議), Japan

Shoei Go: NPO Minga Village(みんが村), Shiga, Japan

Satish Kumar(サティシュ・クマール): chief editor of “Resurgence,” Japan(シューマッハ―・カレッジ創設者・エコロジー＆スピリチュアル雑誌「リサージェンス」編集長)

One of many articles covering the new film by Ocean Preservation Society on the Taiji dolphin hunt “The Cove”. This one mentions the Dall’s porpoise hunt.
 
“Even within Japan, the Taiji hunt is small compared to one that happens in the north, where harpooners kill more than 10,000 Dall’s porpoises every year for food—five times the recent annual take in Taiji. But because the hunt happens out at sea, it’s hard to photograph and has received far less attention than Taiji’s bloody cove.”

Read the full article “Cove” Movie Seeks to End Japan’s Dolphin Hunt, by Patrick Walters
for National Geographic magazine, August 10, 2009

This Dall’s porpoise meat was found to contain more than 1ppm mercury - more than two times higher than the regulatory levels allowed in seafood in Japan