Online Petition Asks Amazon To Permanently Ban The Sale Of Whale and Dolphin Meat
An Amazon.com customer is taking to the web with an online petition to ban the sale whale and dolphin meat on their site.
An open letter to Amazon, posted to Change.org reads in part:
“I know that not everyone can come to Japan to join me to speak out for dolphins and whales, but together we can convince Amazon to permanently stop selling all whale, dolphin, and porpoise products. If Amazon — the largest online retailer in the world — were to adopt a policy like this, it would send a clear message to the world.”
The Environmental Investigation Agency reports that as of now Amazon sells more than 100 products containing whale, dolphin and porpoise meat on it Japanese subsidiary.
Amazon pulled all the products after the reports publishing but has not committed to keeping all the products off its site permanently
The EIA Website says in response to Amazon pulling the products,
“encouraging first step but doesn’t go far enough – we want the company to make a formal declaration that all whale, dolphin and porpoise products will be banned from all Amazon websites, permanently.”
Commercial whaling has been banned worldwide for 25 years, but according to the International Whaling Commission, Japan, Norway and Iceland are allowed special permits to kill a limited number of whales per year as part of their scientific research programs. Japan kills over 1000 whales a year on its scientific expeditions. The scientific rationales for the whaling missions includes
“improving the management procedure for Antarctic minke whale stocks” and “examination of the effect of environmental changes on cetaceans.”
The BBC reports that these missions are really just commercial whaling mission called something more palatable for the rest of the world.
Most Japanese no longer consider whale meat to be a delicacy. The Huffington Post is reporting that more than 60% of Japanese people have not even tasted the meat since childhood.
Do you think that Amazon should ban whale meat?
