mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> Yoshitaka Ikeda <ikeda@4bn.ne.jp> wrote:
> > B <none@nowhere.com> writes:
>
> > > Yoshitaka Ikeda wrote:
>
> > I can't eat whales in the last 12 months.
> > Because of prohibition of hunting, we can only eat them only in a few restaurants,
> > and it's too expensive.

It isn't particularly expensive, especially fresh cuts of meat from
small pilot whales. I7ve enjoyed some excellent banquets in ryokans in
Taiji, but the whale meat isn't the culinary highlight.

> > It's shame that I lost my homemade taste, because of scarcity.

The "scarcity" is only limited to whale meat from the southern ocean
hunts. Pilot whale meat is easily found in shops and restaurants. It
probably doesn't taste particularly good unless your taste buds are
tinged with nostalgia, but pilot meat is still better eating than great
whale meat from the southern hemisphere that has been frozen for up to
4 months.

With the exchange rate now being quite different to the fixed ER of 360
yen to the USD the rational for whale meat as part of school lunches is
history.

There is no debate in Japan that I'm aware of. There is a very small
coastal whaling industry that struggles without subsidies, and the
ships heading to the SH do so at considerable losses. Japan is the only
IWC member with more bureaucrats employed full time to campaign for
resumption of large scale deep sea whaling than full time whalers - I
guess it is luck for the bureacrats and not coincidence that the
whaling communities are all in LDP electorates.