Thursday, February 09, 2006



WHALE FRICASSEE ANYONE?

Tired of the usual steak and chips? How about a whale burger, whale frikkadels or a delicious bowl of whale bolognaise. No thanks? That’s what the Japanese are saying, and now the Japanese government has 1035 tons of last year’s meat on its hands, plus some left over from the year before and the year before that to 1999. Seems the Japanese have gone off whale meat now that it’s not the only thing to eat besides dirt and leaves, like it was for the current generation's parents.

Whale hunting was banned in 1986, but a loophole allowed it in the name of research, which apparently the Japanese can’t do without killing the poor buggers. Every year, Japanese fishing companies kill increasing numbers of whales in the name of “establishing reliable information on whale populations and habits”. Most of the meat is sold on to the restaurant industry in order to fund the next expedition. Greenpeace says Japan has been buying votes on the International Whaling Commission, by offering coastal countries assistance with their fishing industries in return for support for their whaling policies. This year Japan plans to kill 1070 whales and it’s invented a super-harpoon to do the job most effectively. The device has a grenade attached, which hurls “shards of metal through the whale’s body to sever major nerves and blood vessels”. How convenient, mince it up while you kill it, isn’t science wonderful?

The Japan Whaling Association claims whale meat is part of Japanese culture, that they’ve been eating it for 10,000 years, but apparently tastes have changed, there’s so much of it around the price has plummeted and it’s being offloaded on the nation’s poor hapless schoolchildren.

Pack a lunch and run, kids.

2 comments:

Giggletree said...

Pet food

When they’ve finished stuffing as much whalemeat as they can down the gullets of the nation’s schoolchildren and elderly (oh yes, they’re shoving it into poor old people too), they’re going to sell it as pet food

Giggletree said...

A ship belonging to an organization called Sea Shepherd is being held up in Cape Town on the basis that there are not conforming to safety standards. The 657-ton Farley Mowat flies the skull-and-crossbones, and its mission is to stop Japanese whale hunting by harassing fisherman and if possible, sinking them. Now that’s what I call activism. As Japan prepares for its next bout of hunting for much needed whale meat to add to it's inventory, the only people doing anything to stop them are mired in bureaucracy on our very own shores.

Oh well hell, being stranded in Cape Town isn’t exactly hardship, pity about the whales tho.