Can you eat dolphins

Children are especially vulnerable the vet points out. Since the Minimata disaster, Japan has enacted strict laws regarding the emission of heavy metals in the environment, and in the US, the Environmental Protection Agency pays attention to 10 heavy metals in particular. He operates a veterinary practice in Ancona, Italy. Giovagnoli says that in scientific literature: Heavy metals consist of the following elements: aluminum, iron, silver, barium, beryllium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, lead, copper, tin, titanium, thallium, vanadium, zinc, and certain metalloids with properties similar to those of heavy metals, such as arsenic, bismuth and selenium.

Share this post. Post By: Elizabeth Batt. Related posts. Researchers studied dolphin consumption in St. Vincent, where about two-thirds of the residents eat marine mammal meat. The team members analyzed meat and blubber from 28 spinner dolphins and 11 Atlantic spotted dolphins that had been caught near the island.

They also tested processed unidentified cetacean meat, probably from dolphins or pilot whales, from a market. People usually process the meat by cutting it into pieces and drying it to make a beef jerky-like snack. The fresh, unprocessed tissue contained an average of 0.

The U. And the processed meat was far worse — it contained an average of 7. The results suggest that dolphin meat could pose a health risk to the people of St. Vincent, the team suggests. For Japanese people, dolphin eating has come a long way and carries a deep cultural history.

This culture is passed down from one generation to another for centuries. Humans consuming dolphin meat need to know that there is a frightening downside to consuming these meals that many people are not aware of. Experts agree that dolphin meat is high in mercury, excessively high in fact.

And that poses substantial health dangers to the people that eat it. Mercury is an exceptionally toxic chemical ranking second in toxicity only afte r plutonium! There are many ways these harmful chemicals get in our waters.

Small organisms in the water ingest the mercury and methylmercury. When predators eat those animals, they accumulate even higher levels of the toxic compounds. In the marine ecosystem, dolphins along with whales and sharks are right at the top of the food chain. Hence, they are considered as apex predators. Species like the killer whale or orca Orcinus Orca and the common bottlenose dolphin regularly eat large amounts of smaller fish.

Because of that, they consume high concentrations of chemical pollutants along with what they also absorb from the water through their skin. In fact, the mercury levels detected in some tested samples of dolphin meat shows up to 5, times the accepted levels by the World Health Organization WHO. A specific example is that of the dolphins in Minamata, Japan. The dolphins and even other marine fish at Minamata Bay show evidence of exceptionally elevated levels of mercury traced to the dumping of poisonous mercury from a local factory in the region.

Furthermore, communities in Japan and other countries that consume dolphins are at risk of severe brain damage. Demographic statistics carried out the Taiji and Kozagawa villages, two villages known for high dolphin meat consumption, showed mortality rates that were 50 percent higher than in other villages.

Another angle to the dolphin meat consumption controversy is the effects this kind of diet has on the conservation of dolphin species.

Places like Taiji in Japan and the Faroe Islands have come under severe criticism and even internet backlash for the continuous hunting of dolphins. The way and manner in which the helpless dolphins are herded and slaughtered is deplorable. The Taiji dolphin drive hunts in particular continues to raise public outcry but the practice still persists.

Apart from eating the meat, hunters also capture and kill dolphins then use the raw meat as bait to attract large swarms of smaller fish.

The Amazon River dolphin is a direct target of this fishing strategy. Because of these acts, the Amazon River dolphin and some other species of dolphins are likely to become extinct and some already are. This is especially the case for dolphins living in rivers like the Ganges river dolphins, and the Yangtze river dolphins. Some cultures consume dolphin meat as a mark of prestige, others to feed themselves and some just for the sake of it.

But the bottomline remains that not only is this meat potentially very harmful to humans, it puts pressure on cetacean populations just trying to recover from centuries of exploitation. Continuing this kind of diet will only lead to more health and conservation problems in the future. Oh my gosh no! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Luna the dolphin went.