Every year in small towns along the Japanese coast, fishermen conduct drive fisheries to massacre about 20,000 marine mammals in the most brutal way imaginable. They herd whole pods of dolphins, porpoises, and small whales into shallow bays, then slaughter them using sharp spears and hooks. Most are butchered for meat that is sold in restaurants and supermarkets, while a few are sold alive to marine parks where they spend decades in loneliness and deprivation.

As a member of the Save Japan Dolphins Coalition, we at IDA are often asked: "What can I do to help?" Recently, our colleagues at Elsa Nature Conservancy came up with a fresh, new approach to that urgent question.

We are asking the Japanese Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare to put a warning label on all dolphin meat, because laboratory tests show that it is contaminated with dangerously-high levels of mercury, a poison that can cause permanent neurological damage and even death. At this time we are not asking the minister to deal with the issues of food culture or animal cruelty, but simply requesting a warning label for dolphin meat, similar to the one that's placed on every package of cigarettes sold in Japan.

If the warning label system is implemented, it should have a major impact on the demand for dolphin meat. Who is going to buy this questionable product with its warning label attached? Yes, people still buy cigarettes despite the warning label, but cigarettes are extremely addictive – dolphin meat is not.
 

Take Action to urge the Japanese Minister of Health to prohibit the sale of dolphin meat that contains mercury exceeding maximum allowable levels, and require that manufacturers post a warning label on each dolphin meat package.