Scientist with NZ ties gives details of whale-meat bust

An American professor with ties to Auckland University has published evidence of an illegal trade in whale meat, after tracing the DNA of Japanese-caught whales to a restaurant in California.

Molecular biologist Scott Baker, an adjunct professor of molecular ecology and evolution at the University of Auckland, and a team of Oregon State University scientists carried out a genetic analysis of sashimi bought from The Hump restaurant in Santa Monica and found it came from an endangered sei whale, probably caught by Japan's scientific whaling programme.

The link was made after the film-makers of the Oscar-winning anti-dolphin-hunting documentary, The Cove, bought the US$600 (NZ$843) "chef's choice" plate at The Hump and secretly bagged samples to send to Dr Baker, according to the website of the scientific journal Nature.

The meat turned out to be sei whale.

Dr Baker turned over his results to the United States authorities, who confirmed them and charged The Hump with the illegal sale of a marine animal.

Details of the sting were published online yesterday by the journal Biology Letters.

The authors, including Dr Baker, have called on the Japanese Government to release the DNA registry of its whale catch to help stop any illegal trading.

A similar analysis of sashimi bought from a restaurant in Seoul in 2009 found the meat was from antarctic minke whales, from waters that are not fished by South Koreans.

Sei whales and minke whales are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which bans international trading in endangered species.

The restaurant meat's DNA matched whale meat bought by Dr Baker and others in Japanese markets in 2007 and 2008, indicating the meat was probably from the same whale population.

"Since the [International Whaling Commission's 1986] moratorium on commercial hunting, there has been no other known source of sei whales available commercially other than in Japan," said Dr Baker.

New Zealand anti-whaling protester Pete Bethune is awaiting trial in Japan after boarding the Japanese vessel the Shonan Maru II on February 15.

Mr Bethune was trying to make a citizen's arrest on the ship's captain and present a bill for his ship, the Ady Gil, which sank after a January collision with the Shonan Maru II.

Japan's scientific programme kills as many as 1000 whales a year under an exception to the International Whaling Commission's 1986 ban.

The Japanese Government says the programme gathers data on whale numbers and behaviour.

But critics say it is a front for commercial whaling, and the whale meat is sold for profit in Japanese markets.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's delegate to the International Whaling Commission, has drawn the ire of conservationists by defending a return to commercial whaling if it decreases the overall number of whales killed.

Countries will consider a proposal to allow Norway, Japan and Iceland to commercially hunt whales in exchange for a reduction in the number of animals killed.

The compromise would bring scientific whaling under the control of the IWC, requiring Japan to submit DNA samples and other data to the 88-nation body.

- additional reporting, NZPA