e360 digest

22 Feb 2012: Amazon Subsidiary Selling
Meat of Protected Whales, Probe Finds

Amazon Japan, a wholly owned subsidiary of Internet giant Amazon Inc., is offering for sale roughly 150 food products derived from whales, dolphins, and porpoises, including canned whale meat, whale jerky,

A Defender of World’s Whales
Sees Only a Tenuous Recovery

Biologist Roger Payne played a key role in helping end the wholesale slaughter of whales. In an interview with Yale e360, he discusses the mysteries of these legendary marine mammals and the threats they continue to face.
READ THE e360 REPORT

and whale stew, according to a new report. In a survey of the Amazon Japan website in December, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) found 147 different products for sale, including from fin, sei, minke, and Bryde’s whales — species protected by the International Whaling Commission’s moratorium on commercial whaling and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Japanese fishermen hunt whales under the guise of conducting scientific research, and then sell whale meat widely in Japan, conservation groups contend. The EIA urged Amazon.com President Jeff Bezos to enforce company policy not to trade in endangered species and to pull the whale products from the site of Amazon Japan. “By allowing vendors to see whale products on their sites, it is effectively helping to prop up an unsustainable trade that should have been consigned to the history books long ago,” said Clare Perry, a senior campaigner for EIA. After purchasing eight products from vendors, EIA agents found that six contained mercury levels exceeding Japanese health standards.

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