Whale burger joins fast-food offerings in Japan

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Posted 6/23/2005 8:20 AM

 

Whale burger joins fast-food offerings in Japan

 

TOKYO (AP) — A fast food chain in northern Japan began

offering a whale burger on Thursday, even as

anti-whaling nations urged Japan to cut back on its

catch at an international conference on whaling.

 

Restaurant chain Lucky Pierrot is serving a deep fried

minke whale meat burger with lettuce and mayonnaise

for $3.50 at its 10 restaurants in Hakodate on Japan's

northern island of Hokkaido, once a whaling hub in the

nation.

 

Japan is facing increasing international criticism for

its research whaling program in which the whales are

killed in order to study them and their meat is then

sold. Critics say it is commercial hunting in

disguise.

 

Miku Oh, an official for Lucky Pierrot, said the chain

is only utilizing stock meat obtained from the

scientific research and that it wants to preserve the

culture of eating whale meat.

 

" People in other countries may think (eating whale) is

strange, but it is our culture, " she said.

 

Oh said that the whale for the burger is cooked in

such a way that " it tastes like beef and tuna, and

since it is deep fried it has no odor. "

 

At an annual meeting of the International Whaling

Commission, currently being held in Ulsan, South

Korea, anti-whaling countries passed a resolution

Wednesday urging Japan to drop plans to more than

double the number of whales it hunts each year for

research.

 

The commission also has rejected a proposal earlier to

end its almost two-decade-old ban on commercial

whaling, dealing a blow to Japan and other pro-whaling

nations that say stocks of some species have recovered

enough to allow limited hunts.

 

Japan says it must kill whales to properly study them,

including their stomach contents to glean details of

their diets.

 

Environmental groups and anti-whaling countries,

including the United States and Britain, say Japan's

research whaling program is a thinly disguised

commercial whaling venture, stressing that meat from

the whales is sold to Japanese supermarkets and

restaurants to help fund the program.

 

Annually, Japan kills about 400 minke whales in the

Antarctic and another 210 whales — 100 minke whales,

50 Bryde's whales, 50 sei whales and 10 sperm whales —

in the northwestern Pacific.

 

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