Mercury Rising

A report on the sale of polluted whale, dolphin and porpoise meat for human consumption in Japan.

About one-third of products labelled as ‘whale’ found on Japanese supermarket shelves are likely to be dolphin, porpoise or small whales from the country’s coastal hunts.

These toothed cetaceans are almost inevitably highly contaminated with mercury and other pollutants which they bioaccumulate from their diet.