The fact that dolphins are increasingly being sold as whalemeat in Japan is noteworthy for both conservation and strategic reasons. Based on the prices recently paid by Earthtrust investigators for dolphin-sold-as-whale, the going retail rate for a dolphin sold on such a market is about $2800. This is enough to create problems for dolphins not only in Japan, but potentially around the world.While all dolphins have been added to CITES Appendix 2, small cetaceans are not actively protected or otherwise managed by the IWC or any other body. There are many places around the world where dolphins may be caught easily en masse. If it remains easy to substitute dolphin for whale on Japan’s market, there is no reason to think that market forces will not create a flow of dolphin meat into Japan from other areas of the world. This may already be occurring. In the ’70′s Japan set up numerous “local” operations in other countries to obtain whalemeat, and they are now doing similar deals in a number of fisheries. A system which swallowed up 48,000 Soviet humpbacks without detection (see article attached) will not blanch at importing dolphins if there is a market. For this reason, Earthtrust scientists will continue to develop and improve techniques for the identification of small cetacean tissue; and when possible we will send a small cetacean DNA specialist along with the primary whale DNA researcher.

It is significant that dolphin-sold-as-whale constitutes mislabeling, and there are a number of reasons – including risks of heavy-metal poisoning – that Japanese citizens may be expected to want to see this practice cease. It is important not just to identify products as coming from small cetaceans, but to identify WHICH small cetaceans, from which oceans, are being sold as whalemeat.

This practice is a significant danger to dolphins and must be addressed. DNA identification of these dolphins in the marketplace can provide an effective way of halting or greatly curtailing the practice… and may be in time to prevent significant international trade from developing.
Conclusion

A gap has developed: there is a need for DNA reality-checking of the trade in endangered wildlife products (such as whales ) , and the technology is now available to collect this information. But who is going to do it?

Whaling on “protected” whales is continuing, despite being banned by international conservation conventions. However, due to inherent constraints on treaty conventions, governments and scientists, it is difficult for them to monitor illegal trade in the marketplaces of other nations and this has not occurred.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) like Earthtrust, however, are not hindered by such constraints, and are in fact in an excellent position to utilize DNA analysis to police the trade in endangered wildlife products throughout the world.

Earthtrust is taking the initiative to bring more scientists and NGO’s together to conduct these studies because this is a strategy which can save the whales. It can also set a precedent to establish real international conservation of wildlife species in a quantifiable, enforceable way. DNA is becoming widely accepted as a standard of truth by the people of the world, and the chance to take and hold this high ground is one we must seize.

Japan has conducted an international campaign to attempt to discredit the initial Earthtrust work, and is now doing its own. Japan called for our DNA information to not be used at the 1995 IWC meeting –and then presented its own study. (Fortunately, Earthtrust and its allies presented a second-generation study of whalemeat in Korea, keeping conservationists momentum going). Japan is also taking the position that it interdicts most illegal whalemeat. This may only be effectively countered by initiatives from the NGO conservation community to investigate and define the channels of illegal whalemeat flowing into Japan and the content of its whalemeat markets.

The relatively new tool of DNA analysis has now demonstrated itself as an extremely powerful means of tracking and exposing the underground whalemeat industry. By building on this success and implementing the tactics described here, it is conceivable that whaling could be ended by the turn of the century.