Whale Meat Available For Purchase on Amazon.com Japan

Written by Stephen Messenger

On Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, even shoppers with the most obscure tastes can find just about anything their heart desires — including those with a hankering to eat beloved, ocean faring mammals. Ocean advocates are calling for the internet giant to halt the sale of illegal animal products following a report which revealed that whale meat was being openly sold on Amazon Japan’s online marketplace.

According to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a variety of whale, dolphin and porpoise products were found to be freely available for purchase on Amazon Inc.’s wholly owned subsidiarity site Amazon Japan. Among the 147 cetacean-based items for sale on Amazon during the agency’s investigation were a variety of whale jerky, whale stews, and canned whale meat products — some of which contained the flesh of species listed as endangered.

Given the international moratorium on the cruel practice of whaling, as well as the general decline in popularity of whale meat even in parts of the world where consuming it was considered tradition, conservationists are calling for the online megastore to those items from its digital shelves.

“Amazon.com has a clear policy of banning trade in endangered and threatened species but is turning a blind eye to commercial trade in whale products from endangered and threatened whales on its Japanese website,” says Environmental Investigation Agency president Allan Thornton. “We are appealing to Jeff Bezos and Amazon to ensure that Amazon’s ban includes all trade in products from whales, dolphins and porpoises across all of Amazon’s websites.”

In hopes of sending their message home, EAI has released a 50-second advert replete with graphic imagery which highlights the serious cruelty associated with the whale meat trade:

This post was originally published by TreeHugger.

UPDATE (12:13am PST): As of a couple hours ago, Amazon has removed this product from it’s website.

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Read more: Amazon.com, japan, treehugger, whale meat, whales

Photo from aSIMULAtor via flickr

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Heather M.

12:33AM PDT on May 21, 2012

Whales need protection not for consumption.

send a green star

Cindy D.

8:36PM PDT on May 20, 2012

So heart rendering the way Japan uses lies to KILL WHALES one of our Earth's most gentle living, breathing creations EVEN today

Aimee A.

11:18AM PDT on May 19, 2012

Thanks for posting!

Alicia N.

8:44AM PDT on May 19, 2012

SHAME on you Amazon.com!!!!

David N.

9:12PM PDT on Mar 12, 2012

Thank for the article and the video.

Darla G.

6:00PM PST on Feb 28, 2012

Shame on you, Amazon.com

colleen p.

4:06AM PST on Feb 28, 2012

Cori J. they found a loophole

Antony M.

12:09AM PST on Feb 27, 2012

stop the killing of whales those men are sick

Cori J.

4:43AM PST on Feb 26, 2012

I thought Japan said they caught whales for research. I was always taught you don't eat you research.

Thanks for the article.

6:46AM PST on Feb 25, 2012

Colum N.

oh come on. don't act like you won't jump though flaming hoops to save some hate pages on FB.
if it's something like "I hate fur wearers" or "kill all hunters" someone will be fighting to save that page