Japanese “feeding whale meat to dogs”: report

LONDON (Reuters) – Japan’s stock of whale meat from hunting
for scientific research is so large that the country has begun
selling it as dog food, a leading marine conservation
organization said on Friday.

British-based charity the Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Society (WDCS) said Japan’s whale meat stocks had doubled over
the past 10 years as it increased the number of animals it
killed every year, despite a global ban on commercial hunting.

“Whaling is a cruel activity and the fact that Japan is
killing these amazing animals to produce dog food is shocking,”
said WDCS science director Mark Simmonds.

“We have heard many arguments from Japan over the years
about why whaling is necessary to them but they have never
stated that they needed to kill whales to feed their dogs.”

Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986, in line with an
international moratorium, but began catching whales again the
following year for what it calls scientific research.

The WDCS said Japan’s stockpile of whale meat stood at
4,800 tonnes last year compared with 673 tonnes in March 1998,
and that this year it had doubled its hunt of minke whales as
well as adding humpback and fin whales to the tally.

It estimated that this could add a further 1,700 tonnes of
whale meat to the already bursting warehouses.

In an attempt to shift the rising whale meat mountains,
Japan had already resorted to subsidizing sales of whale
burgers and whale meat in school menus, but prices were falling
steadily due to the surplus.

Now, WDCS said, it had found a Web site advertising whale
meat for pet food, extolling its virtues as “organic” and “safe
and healthy” coming from factories already processing whale
meat for human consumption.

“WDCS hopes that the overt use of whales for dog food in
Japan will expose its scientific whaling program as a
politically motivated sham,” the organization said on its Web
site www.wdcs.org.