Japanese Villagers Eat Mercury-Laden Dolphin Meat
CNN.com reports this morning on "Fried dolphin on menu in japanese town". I do not want to bear on the ethical issues of harvesting dolphins. Every culture has their animals they eat that other cultures are disgusted by, as stated in the article:
"Locals know they offend Western sensibilities by eating dolphins, but they say it's a tradition hundreds of years old. And they say outsiders have no more right to tell them to stop eating dolphins than they would have to demand that Westerners stop slaughtering chickens or cows."
In Sweden, some villages eat horse. In the U.S. we eat all sorts of strange variants of things. In the U.K., well, lets just face it, who even likes english food?? Here is rural Pennsylvania, deer is hunted like crazy and you can find all sorts of deer-inspired dishes. Conversely in Japan, deer are considered sacred and not eaten, yet there is no outcry by the japanese for american hunters to stop. Unfortunately, the IUCN Red List denotes the Bottlenose Dolphin's status as DD for Data Deficient. Hence, there is not enough to evaluate the species' conservation status. Dolphin is also hunted in other parts of the world. I am certain there will be comments decrying the killing and inhumanity of the way they are slaughtered...
