A large supermarket chain in western Japan has permanently discontinued sales of dolphin meat after learning that mercury levels in a sample purchased at one of its outlets greatly exceeded government safety levels.
Wakayama Prefecture-based supermarket chain Okuwa Co. pulled dolphin meat from shelves in late December, store official Hiroyuki Sakaguchi said Wednesday.
The move came days after Boyd Harnell, an investigative reporter working for The Japan Times, told store officials that a government-certified food laboratory found 5.40 micrograms of mercury per gram of meat in a sample from a striped dolphin fillet he had purchased at Super Okuwa, a large retail outlet in Shingu, Wakayama Prefecture.