- TOKYO (AP) -- A fast food
chain in northern Japan began offering a whale burger today, even as anti-whaling
nations urged Japan to cut back on its catch at an international conference
on whaling.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "People in other countries may think (eating whale)
is strange, but it is our culture,'' she said.
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- 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.''
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Japan says it must kill whales to properly study them,
including their stomach contents to glean details of their diets.
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- 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.
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- 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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- http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5472186.html
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