1mo ago

Japan whaling ship returns after taking 25 fin whales in Sea of Okhotsk

japantoday.com Japan whaling ship returns after taking 25 fin whales in Sea of Okhotsk

A commercial whaling ship returned to a port in northeastern Japan on Monday carrying 25 fin whales taken in the Sea of Okhotsk. The fin whale hunt in Japan's exclusive economic zone, north of the northern island of Hokkaido, was conducted for the first time since Japan formally withdrew from…

About 320 tons of fin whale meat were unloaded at Sendai port in Miyagi Prefecture on Monday, with some 1.6 tons set to be transported to six markets across the country including Tokyo and Osaka as raw meat.

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Japan’s so weird about whale meat. Supposedly, Japanese people don’t even like whale meat. It’s considered low class fare, and unpleasant. And yet they catch plenty. Anyone have an explanation beyond “cultural heritage of eating food they hate”?
- I would think its the latter.
  American people are weird about asparagus. I dont know anyone who likes it, and its considered to make your pee smell bad if you eat it. And yet we grow 65 million pounds of asparagus on American farms each year
  
  It's pretty good. But yeah, it makes your fluids smell terrible, so I don't make it for myself.
  
  I love asparagus, but understand why it's an acquired taste. I do think, though, that a lot of people who don't like it have just never had it cooked properly.
  
  Asparagus should either be turned into a sauce or blistered with salt. Any other preparation is wrong. That is my political opinion.
  
  If you don't know anyone who likes it all y'all need to learn how to cook better.
- Black market whale oil, for medicine or whatever. I think whale hunting traditions is far outdated imo. But don't touch local traditions of whale killing or else you'll get a bottle at your head. Fishers are sometimes lowkey pirates.
  
  There are traditional cultures that hunt whales, like Inuit people. But they take one whale, not 25.
  Japan is not hunting in a traditional way nor holding to what their ancestors did.
  
  In fairness some of the traditional methods are pretty inhumane. In the Faroes for example they herd them onto the beach which is not great, whereas in Norway they shoot it in the head with an exploding harpoon which is much quicker.
  
  That's fair. But Japan is harvesting fin whales that are second in size to the blue whale. Those whales are facing a huge proplem with overhunting.
  The Faroes hunt is for pilot whales and dolphins which are not facing as an extreme population degradation.
- My grandfather (Japanese) asked over and over again for our family to take him to one of the few restaurants that still serve whale meat. He just wanted to eat it once more before he died (about 10 years ago). He grew up eating it all the time as he was part of a blue collar family and it was a cheap meat that everyone ate. He loved it and hadn’t had it in decades.
  The family always refused and he never got to eat it again. I always felt bad for him, but what Japan did in limiting whale meat consumption would be something like the US eliminating 99% of pork consumption in the matter of a few decades. Is it for the best? Absolutely. Still wish he was able to eat it one last time, though.

11 comments