Japanese dolphin killers at it again, this time more discreetly & daily tour of animal news

Blue Atlantic discovers Japan still slaughtering dolphins in way that doesn’t turn bay red. South Africa kills four poachers. Six WWF workers kidnapped in India, likely by poachers.

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Santa Monica Sushi Restaurant Serves Whale, Makers of The Cove Document on Way to Pick Up An Oscar

Kujira Yukke

Sushi @ Tsukiji (Kujira Yukke) [whale sushi in Japan],courtesy of Hajime NAKANO.

The people who made The Cove, the documentary about Japanese Dolphin slaughter that won an Academy Award Sunday, used some of the same techniques to bust a hipster Santa Monica sushi restaurant for selling whale, the New York Times reports. DNA tests confirmed that a $60 piece of sushi that The Hump sold as whale was in fact the endangered Sei Whale (Balaenoptera borealis). that $60 piece of sushi was sei whale.

DNA-testing sushi is now becoming a food investigation mainstay; it’s almost as popular and fun as finding e. coli at food carts. But normally the results are the opposite: the fish is not what the restaurant says. It’s a cheap substitute. In this case it was on the Omakase, or tasting menu, and the wait staff told the undercover diners they were eating whale, sometimes calling it by its Japanese name, kujira.

The food blog Shizuokasushi explains how whale is served casually in Japan, though usually sperm whales. Japan hunts about 100 sei whales a year under the guise of “research,” according to the IUCN Red List.

Louie Psihoyos, photographer and director of The Cove, worked with “director of clandestine operations” Charles Hambleton, who made tiny cameras for diners to wear–once for themselves and a second time for investigators. An affadavit from investigators describes a search of the restaurant and suggests the whale may have arrived via a Mercedes parked out back.

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Keep reading Santa Monica Sushi Restaurant Serves Whale, Makers of The Cove Document on Way to Pick Up An Oscar

The Cove: By Seeing the Movie, You’re Participating in the Effort

The Cove is a movie about dolphin slaughter in Japan, but the filmmakers have the sense to know that an hour of dolphins being harpooned, flailing and bleeding to death would be unwatchable. Instead they tell the fascinating, adventure story of trying to get footage of a slaughter of dolphins that Taiji, Japan tries desperately to keep secret.

Spoiler alert: they get the footage. And here’s where the audience feels like they’re participating. The point of the effort is to get the word (and video) out on how horrific and unnecessary the process of killing 23,000 dolphins a year is. It’s an act of faith by the filmmakers that once the world knows this will have to stop. And just by witnessing The Cove, you fee like you’re part of their journey.

They also list things you can do to help. You can write President Obama and the Japanese. You can donate. You can carefully choose your seafood–for your own health and for the fish’s sake.

One of the actions they suggest is that you pledge not to go see dolphins in captivity. (The sale of show dolphins supports dolphin slaughter.)

Here are some places you can go see dolphins in the wild instead.

To see more animals go to animaltourism.com