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MEAT FROM FIN whales caught for the first time in nearly 50 years off Japan’s northern coast has fetched up to about €1,247 per kilo at auction.
It comes after Japan’s Fisheries Agency added fin whales to its list of three whale species that can be legally hunted earlier this year as the country expands commercial whaling along its coast.
Japan resumed commercial whaling within its exclusive economic zone after withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission in 2019. The IWC designated the fin whale as a species for protection from overhunting in 1976.
Japan said its recent stock surveys confirmed a sufficient recovery of fin whale populations in the North Pacific.
Officials said 30 of the whales – half of the quota of 60 – were caught this season. Japan set a combined catch quota of 379 for the three other whale species: minke, Bryde’s and sei whales.
The country’s only large-scale whaling fleet operator, Kyodo Senpaku, launched a 9,300-ton new ship this year in a show of determination to stay in the industry.
On Thursday, about 1.4 tonnes of fresh meat from several fin whales caught off Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido was auctioned at the Sapporo fish market and the Kangei Maru’s home port of Shimonoseki.
In Shimonoseki, where 250 kilos of fin whale meat was flown from Hokkaido for the event, the tail meat – a delicacy known as “onomi” – fetched the day’s highest price at 200,000 yen (around €1,247) per kilo, according to the city’s fishery promotion department.
“We hear the larger the whale, the better the taste, so I assume fin whales are more delicious than other kinds of whales, though I never had a chance to taste it and cannot compare,” city official Ryo Minezoe said.
Japan’s whaling has long been a source of controversy and criticism from conservationists.
But anti-whaling protests have largely subsided after Japan switched from much-criticised Antarctic “research whaling” – seen as a cover for commercial hunts – to commercial whaling off the country’s waters.
Last year, Japanese whalers caught 294 minke, Bryde’s and sei whales – less than 80% of the quota and fewer than the number once hunted in the Antarctic and the north-western Pacific under the research program.
Whaling officials link the declining catch to climate change, but critics say overhunting may be the cause.
Nanami Kurasawa, who heads a conservationist group Dolphin and Whale Action Network, opposes resuming hunts of fin whales, saying they had gone nearly extinct after overhunt decades ago and their details around the Japanese coasts are not fully researched.
Whalers want to go after larger whales because of efficiency, but they should more thoroughly investigate whale stock, she says.
Whale meat in Japan was an affordable source of protein for the country’s malnourished population in the years following the Second World War, with annual consumption peaking at 233,000 tons in 1962.
Other meats have largely replaced whale and supply has since fallen to about 2,000 tons in recent years, Fisheries Agency statistics show.
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Whale oil beef hooked. All joking aside though, fin whales are intelligent, emotional and sentient creatures. The people who hunt them are savages. Once more humanity is going backwards.
@Anthony Curran: so are pigs
@keith fay:
So are cows!
@keith fay: Agreed. Maybe one day, in another lifetime, humanity will have developed into something better and more enlightened than what we are now. Animals are viewed as commodities in every single country. All our tech and development in certain areas, blinds us to what a dumb and primitive bunch we are on so many levels.
@SerotoninWars: People should do a little research about animals in the wild. They usually die from perishing cold, starvation,having been in pain for long periods of time, or violent attack, or both, and they generally live their lives with high levels of suffering.
Farm animals should a good life. We need to inprove their living conditions and make their deaths more humane. Both of which we are trying to do.
@Louis Jacob: This is incredibly naive. If you think the meat industry is ‘trying’, I have a bridge to sell you. From KFC going back on their erm commitments to animal welfare with the most obscene conditions and practices imaginable, to the dulling effect and resulting malevolent behaviour in slaughterhouses – the industry acts exactly like you would expect it to. That’s before we scratch the surface of all the other issues. From live export to horrific conditions and unimaginably brutal endings, often as a result of religious beliefs.
Sure, there’s an ‘idyllic’ scenario many like to trot out every time this comes up. Some sort of pastoral-cycle-of-nature vision of the process. It’s vanishingly small.
@SerotoninWars: just like the hospitals and nursing home so
@Anthony Curran: so are carrots.
@Louis Jacob: Is that a passage from George Orwell?
@P. V. Aglue: I don’t think the desired outcome in these places includes the infliction of suffering. The majority are kind and there to help. There’s no happy outcome in an Industry where suffering and violence are included as standard. That’s a pretty important difference. I agree we need to do as much as possible to lessen suffering everywhere we can though. An uphill battle if ever there was one.
@keith fay: ah pigs are too tasty, it their own fault
@keith fay: ah pigs are too tasty, it their own fault
@Anthony Curran: so are cows and sheep
@J B: i am not a vegan, tell me you’re a meat eater without telling me you’re a meat eater
@Shimo F: yeah, God actually made pigs from sausage meat and rashers. They were doomed from the day they were designed
@Anthony Curran: 4 leg’s good, two leg’s bad
@Louis Jacob: we don’t know, and will never know, neither intellectually nor spiritually ; how wild animals experience life on earth. We don’t even know much about ourselves.
There’s a gazillion things to eat. It’s completely unnecessary. There’s no ‘need them to survive’ argument here. All you’re left with is selfishness and callousness. A worrying level of emotional detachment too. We have more than enough evidence about the level of suffering they experience. There’s no excuse.
@SerotoninWars: PS “research whaling”. Oh give me strength. Did they ask the MAGA crowd to do their PR?
Savages, something very wrong about whaling on a large scale.
@Freda Peeple:
Really? Do you eat tuna,or beef, or pork? Are Irish dairy farmers also savages?
@Jonn: yes they are , they would sell you for meat if they could
@Pork Hunt:
Most vegans are spindly pasty faced wretches who look like they could collapse any minute! Humans need meat,whether you like it or not!
@Jonn: I understand where you’re coming from, but pigs and cows aren’t endangered. A lot of whales and sea life are in trouble. I try to consume more sustainable energy proteins wherever possible. Thankfully in Ireland it is doable.
Japan, it’s time to join the 21st century.
Land of Hope and Glory doc on YouTube
@Seanfhear míshásta: Lol, if Japan have yet to join the 21st century then Ireland is still medieval
@Thesaltyurchin: It is ha ha
Good old Japs, up to their old tricks!
@Paul: Merzbow & Boris – ‘Oi leave us out of this!’
Whale, isn’t this fin-teresting?
Shame on Japan.
Ok to slaughter sharks, tuna, cod, crabs, lobsters, cows, pigs, baby sheep, geese, turkeys. Chickens and frogs, but the whale is off limits.
@Paul Whitehead: I know. Totally agree. People are horrified and criticise the Chinese and Vietnamese for eating dog meat, over lunch, while eating a ham sandwich. So many people are hypocrites.
A great bunch of lads
@Ronan Mc: your getting your Orientals mixed up. Its the Chinese who are a great bunch of lads
People are comparing it to pigs, cows etc. but morals of eating one animal over another aside, the problem is that whales take so long to mature and breed at such a slow rate that it takes them a long time to replace the ones taken. They don’t breed until later in life (relative to say pigs) and have long gestation periods.
Nah, yer grand
@Hot Jim: can’t imagine it being v tasty…..certainly NOT 1.25K€ per KG tasty anyhow
@Frank Mc Carthy: probably make ya sick, Frank
@Hot Jim: Jackie cooking you up anything nice for Friday night dinner Jim?
They are not “caught “ it’s not a fish and they don’t use fishing lines. It’s an intelligent mammal with a brain larger a human and it is killed by shooting explosive tipped harpoons at it but they are so big that doesn’t kill them. A lance with a compressed air hose is stabbed into their body and they are pumped up with air, while they are still alive, so they don’t sink. Then they are stabbed again with lance connected to mains electricity and slowly and painfully electrocuted for a long time until they are finally dead. Even dumb cows would not be allowed to be slaughtered in such a barbaric and cruel manner. Shame on japan
@mr truth: cattle aren’t dumb
Do you mean Whale Fin meat? Rather than Fin Whale meat? Either way, this isn’t good for the whales in our oceans. Like shark fin soup and turtle eggs etc. please protect the wildlife. I love LOVE japan, it’s people and many things about that wonderful country, but this is a sad side.
Eating too much of it, though, could make you feel a bit Moby Dick I would imagine…
Excellent news, just in time for the wedding that I’m travelling over to in Hokkaido in February. I can’t wait to try some whale fin meat the minute I touch down. Thank goodness common sense prevails for once in letting people eat what they want.
@Frank O’Hara: To the point where they become extinct?
@Frank O’Hara: go for the wagyu beef instead. It’s everywhere, well cooked (unless you go to those grill places you cook yourself) and it’s so affordable (by dublin standards). Not to mention delicious. I went to Japan once (so far) and ate way more beef than fish which was a huge surprise!
@Brian D’Arcy: Whale fishing is an important industry which provides a livelihood to thousands of fishermen. If there is an industry for whale meat, people should be allowed to buy it. If extinction was so much of a concern to Japan, I don’t think they would have once again permitted it to be farmed and sold on the open market. Humans are at the top of the food chain and people have every right to eat whatever they want without busybodies telling them what they can and can’t do.
@S banter: Wagyu beef is indeed delicious, I’ve been lucky enough to have enjoyed it many times both in Europe and in America. I also tried it when I was in Japan for the Rugby World Cup 2019 and you are right that it is very good value when compared to other locations. I’m planning on running a half-marathon a few days before I head off to Japan so I’ve got some room to enjoy all of the different foods that are there.
@Frank O’Hara: fair play! What a great idea. Best of luck and enjoy the trip! I can’t wait until I can revisit. It really changed a lot of the way I see and do things in general *bow emoji*
Time to dust off the old Enola Gay and I’m not talking the OMD song.
Why, let them be, you savages.
Filthy dirt! The Americans should have finished the job in 1945
#prayforknocknagoshel
@Localization Girls:???
@Michael o Dwyer: ahhh wgaf pray for her that they we whatever
@Michael o Dwyer: https://www.triphobo.com/places/ballyduff-ireland/knocknagoshel-shooting-grounds
I think this is what she means and she’s absolutely right
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