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Whale burger on menu in Japan

TOKYO - A fast food chain in northern Japan began offering a whale burger on Thursday, even as antiwhaling nations at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission urged Japan to cut back on its catch.

Restaurant chain Lucky Pierrot is serving a deep-fried minke whale burger with lettuce and mayonnaise for $3.50 at its 10 restaurants in Hakodate on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, once a whaling hub in the nation.

The commission banned commercial hunts in 1986 because species were near extinction after centuries of whaling. Norway holds the world's only commercial whaling season in defiance of the ban, which is not legally binding, while Japan kills whales for what it describes as scientific research, selling the meat. Critics say it is commercial hunting in disguise.

Miku Oh, an official for Lucky Pierrot, said the chain is only utilizing stock meat obtained from the scientific research and that it wants to preserve the culture of eating whale meat.

"People in other countries may think (eating whale) is strange, but it is our culture," she said.

Oh said that the whale is cooked in such a way that "it tastes like beef and tuna, and since it is deep-fried it has no odor."

This year's whaling meeting was held in Ulsan, South Korea, and ended Friday. Antiwhaling countries passed a resolution Wednesday urging Japan to drop plans to more than double the number of whales it hunts each year for research.

The commission also has rejected a proposal earlier to end its commercial whaling ban, dealing a blow to Japan and other prowhaling nations that say stocks of some species have recovered enough to allow limited hunts.

Japan says it must kill whales to properly study them, including their stomach contents to glean details of their diets.

Environmental groups and antiwhaling countries, including the United States and Britain, say Japan's research whaling program is a thinly disguised commercial whaling venture, stressing that meat from the whales is sold to Japanese supermarkets and restaurants to help fund the program.

Annually, Japan kills about 400 minke whales in the Antarctic and another 210 whales - 100 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales, 50 sei whales and 10 sperm whales.

"Whaling itself has been sort of a symbol for Japanese identity," Joji Morishita, Japan's chief negotiator at the whaling forum, said during the five-day meeting of the 66-member group that regulates global whaling.

"It might be a small activity now, but it used to be at the center of the heart of Japanese," he said.

[Last modified June 25, 2005, 00:35:14]