As Japan pushes to overturn a 24 year ban on commercial whaling, “Mr Whale” has come forward with allegations of corruption, bribery and other acts of criminality. 


Supposedly hunted in the name of research, “Mr Whale”who worked on board the Nisshin Maru whale factory ship, has blown the whistle. He alleges the crewmen are instead seizing and selling prized cuts of meat to earn extra cash, in some cases many times more than their annual salary.


 “Even before we arrived in the Antarctic Ocean,” he says of a recent expedition, “the more experienced whalers would talk about taking whale meat home to sell. It was an open secret. Even officials from the Institute of Cetacean Research [a quasi-governmental body that organises Japan’s whaling programme] on the ship knew what was happening, but they turned a blind eye to it.”


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