Assuming you are serious and not just trying to get a rise out of people, are you saying you have come across panda steak before? Camel, dolphin, whale (non-endangered species) and kangaroo are one thing, but you would actually happily eat the meat of a critically endangered animal? I actually doubt that it's legal in China to eat panda, as the government there does have an interest in preserving them. What would be next on your list, Bengal tiger and gorilla steaks?

As for whale, ethical concerns aside, I can't imagine why people want to eat meat that is known to be so high in heavy metals such as mercury. Studies have shown that basically all whale and dolphin meat sold in Japan contains levels of poisonous chemicals many times the recommended safe limits. Anyway, people have a right to decide what to put in their own bodies, but women who are considering having children any time in the future might want to think twice before they eat sea mammal.

The average life span of people of Taiji considered to be the target in "The cove" is longer than a Japanese average life span.

The article that a Japanese student wrote is interesting.

U.S.A. led the utilization of whale resources once in IWC.

U.S.A. produced many deformed children in those days by scattering a defoliant in Vietnam War. Therefore it was criticized by the world and the American assembly.

And it is these days that an American environmentalist group has begun to appeal for whaling objection without grounds.

U.S.A. suddenly revolved by a policy to whaling objection so that Nixon who became the President with environmental protection as a pledge relaxed the criticism.

The environmentalist group which took the support of the President makes an organization big.
Nixon used them for reelection, too.

That U.S.A. cannot check a pirate such as the SS is that an American politician does not want to lose their election vote now.

A whaling opposite reason of the then environmentalist group.
"A whale is a holy creature". "

actually tiger has a history of being used for medicinal purposes in china >.>''''

not sure if that still persists though....
but it's highly likely that it does~
loolz

and in my book~
Any argument that takes religion [seriously] as a basis, support, reason, or explanation immediately invalidates itself and becomes a comedy >.>''

Yes, and that is a major reason why wild tigers are likely to be completely wiped out in some countries within the next few decades. There are no wild tigers in China, unsurprisingly.

looool~~~~~
chinese wiped out pandas~ tigers~ and who knows what else~~~
americans wiped out native americans~nearly... we now farm them in casinos >.>'''
caucasians wiped out the cocoo and the tazmanian devil~~~
yadda yadaa yadaaa >.>''


meh~ we're all humans :3
we are cancer. intended to wipe out anything we touch. we proliferate relentlessly, and will survive until our host(s) is destroyed.

but unlike other forms of cancer, we have minds; we are sentient.
we think, we plot. and it is now that we plot our next victim, our next host. The universe is doomed >.>''

but yea :3
i'm not defending any one country, people, race, culture, individual~~
i condemn, curse, and damn all of them =DD

not like it really matters, but tasmanian devils are the non-extinct ones, although they are getting pretty owned at the moment, by cancer

Well, technically the panda isn't extinct yet, and I think you mean the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger. It's not all gloom though; there are roughly 10 species of british bird that have been bought back from the brink and are recovering well, and several species of frog whose populations are being stabilized due to conservation efforts following a fungal plague.

The difference being that the Japanese don't ~farm~ whales. They take them from the wild. Plus, the US moved off from whale meat when they found more sustainable alternatives such as cattle. I know some places still allow it for historical and traditional reasons and I suspect if Japan as a nation wanted to follow the same path that would be much more acceptable to the wider global community, but the fact remains that in the past they categorically did not use the large scale steel hulled whaling vessels that they use today, nor the methods of slaughter. Nor on such a massive scale.

There's also ownership issues. Whales in Australian waters are largely protected, but whales wander, and can be killed by japanese whalers in open sea. Now if an indian farmers' sacred cow wandered over a land border into china, say, and was killed and eaten by a chinese man, there would be uproar and the indian farmer would have a right to compensation. But the whaling companies only very reluctantly agree to lay off whales that are known to breed and reside in certain waters.

In other words, don't try and compare whaling to farming. It's a whole different ball game.

It still does in Alaska.

My only experience of eating whale meat was　きゅうしょく and it was pretty foul, so I never really thought about going out and purchasing it. I didn't even know it was whale meat until the next day when I checked the menu. I can imagine it probably tastes fine.

I guess my decision to not try it out of my own volition would be because of the moralities of it. In the same vein as shark fun soup, it is the way in which the meat is fished that makes me retch. Quite quite cruel.

Then again, who knows what goes on behind closed doors with regards to the other meat that I eat I guess.