I see your point, and I had considered that possibility too, but minke whales, about 80% of what Japan hunts, feed more on fish than krill, shrimps and squids.

Belated, and I really should be quoting Misa here, but this is exactly what they've done in Africa and parts of S. America, turning poachers into game-keepers and trackers.

As for Minke, that's very true, but there still could be big differences between where they hunt and what kind of fish they consume. As I said before, Dolphins are more likely to hunt in shallower coastal water, whereas whales go out to sea to hunt where there's less contamination. Also it could just be the type and location of the dolphins being consumed. Minke meat was recently reported with an average of 0.10ppm mercury level, whereas the dolphin meat supplied from the particular hunt that's causing this controversy has something like 0.50ppm. It's still not enough to give you minamata though. You need to be around 1.0ppm or higher to start getting symptoms i think. But it accumulates in the body over time, so even if you eat a lot of low-mercury fish it'll still build up over time. You can't just metabolize it out naturally.

That's good. I wonder why they can't do the same in Japan. To the fishermen's credit though, they are not poachers. It is not illegal to hunt dolphins.

OK. This seems to be more of the case than anything else. Mercury concentration varies depending largely on the species.
http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/bukyoku...50812-1-05.pdf

Some "whale" like マッコウクジラ has more concentration of mercury(ave. 0.7μg/g) than some "dolphin" like イシイルカ(ave.0.370μg/g). It is very high in バンドウイルカ (6.622μg/g. This is THE dolphin we usually think of), but Taichi isn't killing this species for meat.
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/life/trend/...2108010-n1.htm

Anyway, my point was it is not true that dolphin meat is labeled as whale so people think it has less mercury.

Japanese expected life is long.
The resident in Taijicho has a long life.

Aborigine's expected life is terrible and short.

Mmm, I guess in the poaching areas, the charities and so forth that made the career switches possible all had the backing of whichever government was in charge. Without backing from the Japanese government, it wouldn't happen.

Ooh, perfect! It'll take me a little while to work through all the Japanese so out of interest, which species IS Taichi targeting, because I'm getting a little muddled with the article news speak. Just the Japanese name is fine.

I think after Minamata, and the controversy that is STILL ongoing, the last thing they are going to allow is mis-labelling of meat for consumption. Can you imagine? It'd be like them selling beef labelled as venison during a BSE scare.

True. So pissing off Japanese people and their government is the worst strategy I believe.

This particular article says it was マゴンドウ so it's probably コビレゴンドウ（Short-finned pilot whale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). They caught 100 bottle nose dolphins in this turn of hunting, kept 10 of them to sell them to aquariums and released the rest.

Yeah, plus, I heard Dolphin meat smells very strong. If I ordered beef and got hare meat instead, I'd be mad.

The "different culture, different logic" argument works against people who hold the double standard on meat. (National governments for example)

But not against the environmentalist position.

Newsflash-

Most environmentalists are ALSO against factory farming in the West so when you accuse people of holding double standards and being unfair about Japan, just be aware that you are doing the same with the anti whaling argument.

There are MANY arguments in there. Its not a two sided thing (West vs Japan/Whalers versus Anti whalers)... though it is presented as such by the media which is where you guys fail.

I side with the environmentalists for the following reasons.

-Dolphin hunting is cruel (I also think factory farming is cruel and support organisations who want it outlawed)

-Dolphin meat is poisonous as is shown by the cove.

Finally I just want to say that it is NOT a Japan vs the West thing. This is perpetuated by the Japanese whale lobby and far right nationalists but is an idea also held by people who dont know all too much about the various arguments being made and see this as a dichotomous discussion.

Also MOST Japanese I know are against dolphin eating/hunting etc and think Taiji is a disgrace of a town (admittedly, most of my Japanese friends are liberal-minded students). Furthermore... most Japanese dont even know its happening and the movie "The Cove" makes you aware of that.

Yeah, If change is going to happen, it needs to come internally. I must say, I support animal welfare dearly, but I do think Greenpeace and PETA often cause more uproar than actual good.

Ah, so in fact, it has been a misnomer all along. They aren't hunting dolphins for meat consumption at all, but it's back to the Japan does Whaling issue again. I can't say I support it, nor the sale of wild dolphins into aquariums, but it's a slightly different issue to a sudden shift onto dolphin hunting for the mass market.

I wouldn't be mad, rabbit is delicious!

Ronin,
I take back my words on the dolphin part. Maybe not many know about the dolphin hunting. However, they are a bit ignorant if they don't know about whaling. Nobody will openly support whaling in front of a westerner who is clearly not happy with it, especially when there is a language barrier. That's not to say all of your friends support it, I'm just saying it's hard to know.

As I said, for many Japanese people, whaling isn't their tradition or culture. I guestimate maybe 1% of Japanese people are from the areas where they eat whales. Still, if you google it, you'll see anti-whaling is very unpopular in Japan.

捕鯨　世論 - Google Search

Greenpeace only has 5500 members in Japan which is very few considering it has 260 million members worldwide. Many Japanese people, including myself, take a stance "I don't eat whale, but I don't hold with the activists. Who do they think they are to think their moral standard is higher than Japanese's?". It's interesting you assumed it was "liberal" to be anti-whaling because a lot of people are taking it as racism in Japan. You, Ronin, are talking to a scuba diver who has never had whale before, and grew up in an area where whaling is not a tradition or a part of the local culture. I have no reason to support whaling except that anti-whaling activists are often egoistic and their activities are inciting racism on both sides.

Anyway, both of your reasonings are flawed so you should stop supporting anti-whaling activists.

- So called "dolphin" meat is not poisonous. I already showed you the data. The mercury level is about the same as other fish. This is not to say there wasn't any contaminated meat, but there is no reason to assume dolphin meat is more poisonous than other fish.

- The fact you don't support factory farming doesn't have anything to do with this argument. The US consumes 10 times more meat than Japan do. Why do the activists go all the way to the end of the world to protest against whaling that produce only 0.03% of meat, i.e. kill less than 0.03% of lives, the US do? Why don't they sabotage their local slaughterhouse? Why don't Discovery channel air "Cow War" or "Chicken War" or "Pig War", and attack their local farmers? Come on, we are talking about more than 30,000 times the lives here. That's only logical right? The reason is that it is "culturally" more acceptable to kill cows or chickens or pigs than whales in the West, well, more specifically, in the English speaking countries. It IS about whalers versus anti-whalers, and it IS about some western culture versus Japanese culture. It's a crusade against whaling. And crusade is a synonym for racism and massacre in some parts of the world.

The question is, what makes you, or anybody, be the judge on what human race can kill and eat? It's not just about whales. Some people think animals can not be killed, but fish is OK. Some think killing anything that moves is cruel. There are some who think only taking windfalls is appropriate. And there is the extreme. Some think killing bacteria is a sin and refuse to drink water in order to avoid taking the lives of them, and subsequently die. It's all arbitrary. Sure, dolphins are cute and I don't want them to be killed. But you, not Ronin specifically but you in general, don't need to be on a high horse preaching about how your morals is better than others.

I can't agree more.

It's yes and no. ゴンドウ(Pilot whale) is whale in English, but often called dolphin(イルカ) in Japanese. The difference between dolphin and whale is biologically non existent. We just call smaller toothed whales dolphins. If you scrutinize my previous link, you'll see what's actually going on.

http://kokushi.job.affrc.go.jp/H20/H20_45.html

The hunting method that was shown in The Cove is called 追込 and done exclusively in Taichi today. As I said, Taichi is a small town and they only hunt a bit more than 1000 a year. In 2007, they got 300 ハンドウイルカ (bottle nose dolphin, THE dolphin) and sold 77 to aquariums. I believe 223 were slaughtered and sold as meat. They probably stopped this because of the protest. I'm not sure what happened to スジイルカ (striped dolphin) this year. 384 were killed in 2007.

The majority of "Dolphin hunting" is done in 岩手 where almost 10,000 "イルカ" are hunted annually. The method they use (突棒) is basically a scaled down whaling, which uses harpoons. The species hunted there are イシイルカ and リクゼンイルカ which are called porpoise in English (Dall's porpoise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). I don't think this is affected by the protest in any way.

Even if you limit it to ハンドウイルカ, several hundred had been killed every year prier to 2007, and probably sold as meat. And the activists seem to have stopped this. But that's by employing this much racism.

dolphin fucking "japs" - Google Search

Several hundred dead dolphins cost only $100,000 or so… A tiny fraction of the budget of the activists. I don't think inciting this much hatred and racism is justified when there are so many much easier alternatives. It's scary that some people love dolphins and whales more than fellow humankind.

Nah, I'll pass that one. Rabbits are cute :P