Australian non-profit files police complaint over ‘toxic’ dolphin meat sold in Japan

An Australian nonprofit called Action for Dolphins (AFD) has lodged a police complaint demanding that “toxic” dolphin meat be removed from sale in Japan, said a report by the British daily newspaper, the Guardian. This comes after tests conducted in a Japanese laboratory showed that the levels of mercury found in said meat were nearly 100 times higher than the government’s recommended safe level.

What did the test find?

According to the report by the Guardian, an AFD investigator, based in Japan, recently tested a sample of Risso’s dolphin offal which exceeded the government-set regulatory limit of mercury by up to 97.5 times. Additionally, a separate package of Risso’s dolphin offal, which was tested showed mercury levels nearly 80 times higher than the limit which is considered safe by the government.

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The dolphin meat in question was ordered back on 13 October 2022 which arrived two days later and was sent to a lab in Japan to be tested. “There are multiple test results dating back a decade showing potentially toxic levels of mercury in whale and dolphin meat sold via Yahoo! Japan’s website,” AFD’s chief executive, Hannah Tait, told the Guardian.

She added, “There is a lack of information and labelling…anyone can buy the meat, including pregnant women, which is particularly troubling.” She also told the British newspaper how she hopes that the police complaint and the test results lead to dolphin meat being removed from sale in supermarkets, restaurants and the online retailer Yahoo! Japan.

The complaint was filed by the Tokyo-based law office of Takashi Takano, on behalf of AFD, which also targets a speciality whale meat store that sells cetaceans caught in Taiji, on Japan’s Pacific coast, via Yahoo! Japan, reported the Guardian. The complaint also called for ending dolphin hunting in Taiji where hundreds of dolphins are killed in an annual slaughter.

Similar tests were conducted by the organisation in 2020 and 2021 which showed mercury levels in dolphin meat between 12 and 25 times over the regulatory limit. However, their previous complaint, filed in 2021, resulted in no action being taken by prosecutors.

How did Yahoo! Japan respond?

In an emailed statement to the Guardian, the website denied selling dolphin meat or “or any related products” but only whale meat. The report also then found that the offal which was tested by the AFD can be translated into English as Risso’s dolphin or Risso’s pilot whale and the organisation had used the latter translation. However, Tait later clarified that the cetacean is biologically a member of the dolphin family.

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