Australian organisation lodges police complaint demanding ‘toxic’ dolphin meat be removed from sale in Japan

An Australian nonprofit, Action for Dolphins (AFD), has filed a police complaint in Japan demanding the removal of ‘toxic’ dolphin meat from sale in the country. The move comes after tests conducted by a Japanese laboratory showed that the mercury levels in the meat were almost 100 times higher than the government’s recommended safe limit.

The Guardian reported that an AFD investigator in Japan tested a sample of Risso’s dolphin offal that exceeded the government-set regulatory limit of mercury by up to 97.5 times. Another package of Risso’s dolphin offal, which was tested separately, showed mercury levels almost 80 times higher than the safe limit set by the government.

The dolphin meat in question was ordered on 13 October 2022, and it arrived two days later, after which it was sent to a lab in Japan for testing. AFD’s chief executive, Hannah Tait, told The Guardian that multiple test results over the past decade showed potentially toxic levels of mercury in whale and dolphin meat sold on Yahoo! Japan’s website.

Tait noted that the lack of information and labeling is a concern, as anyone, including pregnant women, can buy the meat. She hopes that the police complaint and test results will lead to the removal of dolphin meat from sale in supermarkets, restaurants, and online retailer Yahoo! Japan.

The complaint was filed by the Tokyo-based law office of Takashi Takano on behalf of AFD. It targets a specialty whale meat store that sells cetaceans caught in Taiji, on Japan’s Pacific coast, via Yahoo! Japan. The complaint also calls for an end to dolphin hunting in Taiji, where hundreds of dolphins are killed annually.

Similar tests were conducted by the organization in 2020 and 2021, which showed mercury levels in dolphin meat between 12 and 25 times the regulatory limit. However, their previous complaint, filed in 2021, resulted in no action being taken by prosecutors.

Yahoo! Japan denied selling dolphin meat or ‘any related products’ in an emailed statement to The Guardian. The report also noted that the offal, which was tested by AFD, can be translated into English as Risso’s dolphin or Risso’s pilot whale.

The organization had used the latter translation, but Tait later clarified that the cetacean is biologically a member of the dolphin family.