Ethics Over Profits

Why Yahoo! Japan must stop selling whale and dolphin products

This new report calls on Yahoo! Japan and its parent company, the LY Corporation, to stop selling products containing whale and dolphin meat after our investigations found high levels of toxins in some of the nearly 1,000 cetacean food items available for purchase on the search engine and web portal.

In January, Yahoo! Japan’s shopping site listed 963 food products derived from whales, dolphins and porpoises (cetaceans), including 58 pet food products containing whale meat.

Of 66 cetacean products purchased by EIA and tested by certified laboratories in Japan between 2007-25, the average mercury concentration of 2.67 parts per million (ppm) was almost seven times higher than the advisory limit set by the Government of Japan.