ANIMAL FORUM

> On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:41:08 +0545, Kadaitcha Man did most oddly
> state:
>> Demon Lord of Confusion, the free-swimming welder, retched:
>>> On Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:59:27 +0545, Kadaitcha Man attempted to
>>> confuse the issue further by squeaking:
>>>> pearl, the immature moneylender, entreated:
>>>>> Kadaitcha Man wrote...
>>>>>> pearl wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sea Shepherd News
>>>>>>> News Releases
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 10/20/2006
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Annual Dolphin Slaughter Begins in Japan
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On October 11th, Ito City Fishing Cooperative announced that
>>>>>>> they will continue their annual drive hunt of dolphins. They
>>>>>>> join Taiji, and other small villages along the coast of Japan,
>>>>>>> in a bloodbath that results in the death of over 20,000
>>>>>>> dolphins and small whales annually from October through April
>>>>>>> each year.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sanctioned by the government of Japan, which gives a quota of
>>>>>>> how many animals can be slaughtered during the hunt, these
>>>>>>> intelligent mammals are corralled into bays, where most of them
>>>>>>> suffer a long and painful death by spears, hooks, and drowning.
>>>>>>> Then, often sold under the guise of whale meat, the highly
>>>>>>> toxic flesh
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bzzzzt. Wild claim presupposing the presence of polychlorinated
>>>>>> biphenyls, mercury, lead, arsenic, copper, dioxin, cadmium, et
>>>>>> al.
>>>>>
>>>>> The concentrations of total mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls
>>>>> (PCBs), and organochlorine pesticides (SDDT, dieldrin,
>>>>> hexachlorobenzene [HCB], and SHCH) were determined in 61 whale
>>>>> meat products (bacon, blubber, red meat, liver, intestine, and
>>>>> tongue) purchased from retail outlets across Japan. Mean (range)
>>>>> concentrations of contaminants in all samples were: total mercury
>>>>> 4.17 (0.01-204);SPCB 1.14 (0-8.94);SDDT 0.98 (0-7.46); dieldrin
>>>>> 0.07 (0-0.35); HCB 0.06 (0-0.22); and SHCH 0.07 (0-0.19)

> The God of Odd Statements, the park ranger, deplored:
>> On Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:41:08 +0545, Kadaitcha Man did most oddly state:
>>> Demon Lord of Confusion, the free-swimming welder, retched:
>>>> On Thu, 26 Oct 2006 16:59:27 +0545, Kadaitcha Man attempted to confuse
>>>> the issue further by squeaking:
>>>>> pearl, the immature moneylender, entreated:
>>>>>> Kadaitcha Man wrote...
>>>>>>> pearl wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sea Shepherd News
>>>>>>>> News Releases
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 10/20/2006
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Annual Dolphin Slaughter Begins in Japan
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On October 11th, Ito City Fishing Cooperative announced that they
>>>>>>>> will continue their annual drive hunt of dolphins. They join
>>>>>>>> Taiji, and other small villages along the coast of Japan, in a
>>>>>>>> bloodbath that results in the death of over 20,000 dolphins and
>>>>>>>> small whales annually from October through April each year.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sanctioned by the government of Japan, which gives a quota of how
>>>>>>>> many animals can be slaughtered during the hunt, these intelligent
>>>>>>>> mammals are corralled into bays, where most of them suffer a long
>>>>>>>> and painful death by spears, hooks, and drowning. Then, often sold
>>>>>>>> under the guise of whale meat, the highly toxic flesh
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bzzzzt. Wild claim presupposing the presence of polychlorinated
>>>>>>> biphenyls, mercury, lead, arsenic, copper, dioxin, cadmium, et al.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The concentrations of total mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls
>>>>>> (PCBs), and organochlorine pesticides (SDDT, dieldrin,
>>>>>> hexachlorobenzene [HCB], and SHCH) were determined in 61 whale meat
>>>>>> products (bacon, blubber, red meat, liver, intestine, and tongue)
>>>>>> purchased from retail outlets across Japan. Mean (range)
>>>>>> concentrations of contaminants in all samples were: total mercury
>>>>>> 4.17 (0.01-204);SPCB 1.14 (0-8.94);SDDT 0.98 (0-7.46); dieldrin 0.07
>>>>>> (0-0.35); HCB 0.06 (0-0.22); and SHCH 0.07 (0-0.19) µg/ g (wet
>>>>>> weight).The data were used to calculate estimated daily intakes
>>>>>> (EDIs) of contaminants at two hypothetical levels of whale meat
>>>>>> consumption. These EDIs were compared with FAO/WHO tolerable daily
>>>>>> intake (TDI) values for each chemical. EDIs calculated for higher
>>>>>> levels of whale meat consumption were in some cases exceptionally
>>>>>> high and for many products exceeded FAO/ WHO-TDIs for total mercury,
>>>>>> PCBs, and dieldrin, with exceedance factor values (EDI/TDI) for
>>>>>> total mercury, PCBs, and dieldrin reaching maxima of 175, 5.36, and
>>>>>> 2.1, respectively. For sensitive consumers and those with high-level
>>>>>> consumption (e.g., whaling communities), exposure to mercury and to
>>>>>> a lesser extent PCBs from certain whale blubber and bacon
>>>>>> and striped dolphin liver products could lead to chronic health
>>>>>> effects. The
>>>>>> Japanese community should therefore exercise a precautionary
>>>>>> approach to the consumption of such foods in excess, particularly by
>>>>>> high-risk members
>>>>>> of the population.
>>>>>> http://palumbi.stanford.edu/manuscripts/Simmonds%20et%20al%202002.pdf
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Mercury in Japans Whale Meat
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Whale meat and organs have long been featured ingredients in
>>>>>> traditional Japanese dishes. Today, the meat and organs of small
>>>>>> cetaceans including whale and dolphin are not as widely eaten, but
>>>>>> they are readily available
>>>>>> throughout Japan. Now scientists have discovered dangerously high
>>>>>> levels of mercury in cetacean meat products sold as food there.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A whale of a problem. Whale meat, though not widely eaten in Japan,
>>>>>> is readily available there. Such meat can contain far more mercury
>>>>>> than deemed safe by the U.S. and Japanese governments. image
>>>>>> credits: Ezra Clarke/EIA
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare has set the
>>>>>> safe level of total mercury at 0.4 parts per million (ppm) for
>>>>>> marine foods (the U.S. level is set at 1.0 ppm). Each year, Japan
>>>>>> allows more than 22,000 small cetaceans to be legally harvested for
>>>>>> food around the coast of Japan, although Naoko Funahashi, Japans
>>>>>> representative for the International Fund for Animal Welfare,
>>>>>> estimates the actual catch is around 17,000-19,000.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Toothed whales--including porpoise, dolphin, and some whale species
>>>>>> --are top predators in the sea life food chain. These small
>>>>>> cetaceans therefore tend to accumulate higher loads of pollutants
>>>>>> such as mercury than do filter feeders such as baleen whales.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The real health problem is that some dolphin meat is being
>>>>>> mislabeled as baleen whale meat, says Naomi A. Rose, a
>>>>>> marine-mammal scientist with The Humane Society of the United
>>>>>> States, a Washington, D.C.- based nonprofit organization opposed to
>>>>>> commercial whaling. Most consumers cant distinguish the red steaks
>>>>>> of small cetacean meat from those of baleen whale meat. Whoever is
>>>>>> getting those unlucky packages is getting a lot of contaminants,
>>>>>> says Rose. People are playing Russian roulette.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Between 2000 and 2002, a team of scientists led by Tetsuya Endo, a
>>>>>> professor in the Department of Clinical Toxicology and Metabolism at
>>>>>> the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, purchased whale meat
>>>>>> samples from markets across the country. The researchers measured
>>>>>> total mercury levels and performed genetic analysis to verify the
>>>>>> species
>>>>>> of each sample. Their findings were published in the 15 June 2003
>>>>>> edition of Environmental Science & Technology.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Samples of Dalls porpoise, the most commonly harvested cetacean in
>>>>>> Japan, had an average total mercury level of 1.26 ppm, with the
>>>>>> highest sample at 2.51 ppm. Samples of false killer whale had an
>>>>>> average total mercury level of 46.9 ppm, with a high of 81.0 ppm.
>>>>>> Even the levels in baleen whales were high. North Pacific minke
>>>>>> whale samples had a total average mercury level of 0.10 ppm. This
>>>>>> shows that pollution levels in the ocean are at such a bad level
>>>>>> that even filter feeders are bioaccumulating some kinds of
>>>>>> contaminants, says Frank Cipriano, director of the Conservation
>>>>>> Genetics Laboratory at San Francisco State University.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Perhaps even more alarming are the results of a separate study in
>>>>>> which the team sampled mixtures of boiled internal organs--sold in
>>>>>> packages in retail outlets--for total mercury and essential heavy
>>>>>> metals. In samples of boiled small cetacean livers purchased between
>>>>>> 1999 and 2001, the researchers found an average total mercury level
>>>>>> of 370.0 ppm. Two samples had total mercury levels that topped
>>>>>> 1,970.0 ppm.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> These levels are a thousand times greater than the worst samples
>>>>>> that we get in predatory fish in the United States, says Charles
>>>>>> Santerre, an environmental toxicologist at Purdue University. With
>>>>>> a tuna steak, you might get one part per million of mercury. This
>>>>>> problem in Japan is in a different league altogether.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In their report, published in the December 2002 issue of The Science
>>>>>> of the Total Environment, Endo and colleagues noted that acute
>>>>>> mercury intoxication could result from a single meal of whale
>>>>>> internal organs, with effects that can include serious nervous
>>>>>> system symptoms, staggering, coma, and death. They called on the
>>>>>> Japanese government to regulate human consumption of whale and
>>>>>> dolphin internal organs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In 2002, a revised Japanese national law required that all fresh
>>>>>> seafood products be labeled with the species name. And on 3 June
>>>>>> 2003, based on studies suggesting that fetal exposure to
>>>>>> methylmercury could harm the developing nervous system, the Japanese
>>>>>> health ministry issued a warning to pregnant women to limit
>>>>>> consumption of certain whale products to no more than one 60- to
>>>>>> 80-gram serving a week and bottlenose dolphin to no more than once
>>>>>> every two months.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But, says Funahashi, many products still lack a species name, and
>>>>>> many have the wrong or false name (there is no penalty for
>>>>>> mislabeling). Furthermore, the Japanese word for whale, kujira, can
>>>>>> also mean dolphin or porpoise. Some Japanese media have highlighted
>>>>>> the mislabeling problem, so more consumers are aware of it, she
>>>>>> says. But cetacean meat is [no longer] a common food, so it is not
>>>>>> a huge concern among the public--yet.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2003/111-14/forum.html
>>>>>
>>>>> Your line length is fux0red.
>>>>
>> It looks to me like a newsreader issue -- I just checked her line length
>> in a test reply (not posted), and none of them were over 77
>> characters...Then again, Im using a smallish font.;-{P}
>>>
>>> 77 characters is the cause of the problem, hence the comb effect. She
>>> should set her line length to 76 to allow for non-displayable carriage
>>> return/line feed pairs.
>>
>> I should appreciate Pan more than I do.
>
> Thats odd.

>>> PS: You only get to tell me its a newsreader issue when you have a
>>> technical support website that gets in excess of 2.3 million hits per
>>> year, even if you are correct.
>>
>> To reiterate: ;-{P}
>>
>>> You may now call me a cunt.
>>
>> Cunt.
>
> I agree.