Posted on 01/05/2011 6:09:48 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Japan's whale meat stocks likely hit record high in Aug 2010
Wednesday 05th January, 02:32 PM JST
TOKYO —
Japan’s whale meat stocks may have reached a record high of over 6,000 tons last August, a conservation group said Wednesday, suggesting sluggish consumption of the meat, which comes from the country’s contentious whaling for what it calls research purposes.
The finding will likely heighten calls for Tokyo to review its research whaling program as it is financed partly by revenues from sales of the meat as well as state subsidies, observers say.
The Iruka & Kujira (Dolphin & Whale) Action Network and freelance journalist Junko Sakuma said the amount of whale meat at storehouses across Japan is estimated to have topped 6,000 tons as of the end of August 2010, based on data released by the Fisheries Agency.
The amount unveiled by the agency was 5,790 tons in August last year, the second-largest level after 5,969 tons in April 2006, but the data covered only about 500 warehouses, down from 651 tallied until December 2009, and would have reached 6,025 tons if 651 were covered as before, the group said.
Whale meat stocks tend to increase in August when those hunted in the Northwest Pacific off the Sanriku coast in Miyagi Prefecture are landed. Supply hardly increases after that month.
In 2010, the catch came to about 3,770 tons before August, down nearly 827 tons from the same period the previous year. Stocks at the end of August are estimated to have grown more than 700 tons from the 5,254 tons a year earlier, as consumption fell short of supply, according to the group.
‘‘Although the supply was small and wholesale prices of whale meat have been cut in the past two years, the pace of decline in stocks has been slowing as Japanese people are moving away from whale meat,’’ Sakuma said.
Nice. Excess supply means lower prices for the consumer of this product.
>> How can this be?
The sea hippies are ineffectual drama queens.
Oh man!
Makes me want to watch a whole season of that show again just so I can treat it as a comedy sitcom!
LoL!
Might I suggest you check out the South Park take on it first.
Anyone know what whale meat tastes like?
Do the sharks know what leftwing sea hippie tastes like?
Just askin’
Tofu and granola?
I say let the Japanese hunt the whales as much as they like, provided they help breed and replenish their stocks.
Maybe we should look into “Ranching” sea cows....
I would imagine the last thing the hunters would want to do is to hunt themselves out of a living, so it would make sense they would want to make sure that they would replenish.
“state subsidies”
Tastes like chicken!
Thank God that the evil oil company’s saved the whales before they were all gone so the japs could eat whale meat. Too bad they don’t sell whale meat in the US.
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