Japan's whale meat first trade hunt over the years gets top dollar at auction
Chunks of meat from the first whales caught since Japan resumed commercial whaling this week fetched "celebration prices" at auction yesterday.
The fresh meat sold for up to NZ$210 per kilogram, several times higher than the prices paid for Antarctic minkes, at a wholesale market in Sendai, one of several cities on Japan's northern coasts to hold the auction.
The meat came from two minkes caught by a fleet of five catcher boats off the northern city of Kushiro on Monday when Japan resumed commercial whaling after 31 years. During those years it conducted research hunts in the Antarctic and the northwestern Pacific that conservationists criticized as a cover for banned commercial hunts.
Japan left the International Whaling Commission on June 30 and has promised the whalers will stay within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone waters.
The Fisheries Agency set the catch quota through the end of the year at 227 whales — fewer than the 627 Japan had hunted in those distant waters for its research program in recent years.
At Thursday's auction, the high-priced fatty belly meat called "unesu" was part of the 120 kilograms purchased by Sendai Suisan Co., the company said.
It also put in 10,000 yen ($NZ135) per kilogram for red meat. The prices were much higher than the average 2,000 yen per kilogram.