Japanese Company Poses New Threat To Whales By Claiming Whale Meat A Curative
The Japanese are dedicated to destroying the fish in the sea, sharks, and, of course, whales. Despite international sanctions and continued conflict with Sea Shepherds, the hunting, under the guise of ‘research’ goes on.
Read about the uncaring Japanese companies who are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the Japanese people while all the while slaughtering our animals.
by John R. Platt who covers the environment, technology, philanthropy, and more for Scientific American, Conservation, Lion, and other publications. Reprinted here with permission from TakePart.com.
A Japanese company wants to turn whale meat into the next rhino horn.
Just as unscrupulous dealers in China and Vietnam started making unsubstantiated claims a decade ago that rhino horn could cure cancer and hangovers, Japan’s Kyodo Senpaku is now marketing Icelandic whale meat as a way to treat dementia and fatigue.
The move comes in response to plummeting demand for whale meat in Japan. Consumers there now eat 4,000 to 5,000 tons of whale meat a year, down from 200,000 tons in the 1960s. About half of this year’s imports by Kyodo Senpaku will come from Iceland, one of the few countries killing whales under the guise of “scientific research.”
A spokesperson for Kyodo Senpaku told The Japan Times that the attempt to market whale meat as a curative “may help not only to maintain demand for whale meat but also to lower health care costs.”
So what’s the deal with the anti-dementia claim? Kyodo Senpaku’s assertions hinge on an amino acid found in whale meat called balenine. Balenine and other flesh-based compounds (collectively known as carnosines) have indeed been linked in early research to fighting depressive orders. A paper published this year in the journal Aging and Diseaseconcluded that the “therapeutic potential of carnosine dietary supplementation towards stress-related and depressive disorders should be examined” but did not say it was ready for marketing as a health aid for humans.
The move to sell whale meat as a curative did not surprise conservationists.
“This isn’t the first time balenine has been used to market whale meat,” said Clare Perry, head of the Environmental Investigation Agency’s oceans campaign. “It’s been mentioned for several years by those that are desperate to sell whale meat to a dwindling market.”
An example of that desperation: Last year the whale-meat industry introduced a cute cartoon mascot called Balenine-chan to help it market its products.
Read more about Japan’s latest scam to murder whales.
Slaughtering the whales, slaughtering the dolphins, using fishing techniques that destroy the sea bottom, clear cutting vast forests to make disposable chopsticks. . .
And of course compounding the offense by using a fallacy to support it: Arguing the consequent, or the end justifies the means.
I’d like to see Greenpeace acquire some attack submarines. . .
I’d like to see that as well. Sea Shepherds, although without submarines, use all sorts of different boats and equipment to stop the whaling. They even rammed the whaling ship on one occasion.
They won’t give up until it costs them more to kill whales than it does to conserve them.
ugh, when will we get it.