Mercury scare hits schools' dolphin dinners

Schoolchildren in Japan's whaling capital have been served dolphin meat containing dangerous levels of mercury, councillors from the region have revealed, prompting warnings of a potential public health disaster as the country attempts to boost consumption of the meat.

In a rare departure from the official line that cetacean meat - that of aquatic mammals - is safe and nutritious, two assembly members from Taiji in the southern Wakayama prefecture broke ranks. They said that tests on samples of short-finned pilot whales - a type of large dolphin, despite its name - had found mercury levels 10 to 16 times higher than those advised by the health ministry.



"In kindergartens, elementary schools and middle schools, children are served the meat two or three times a month," said Hisato Ryono, who described the meat as "toxic waste".

Meat from the dolphins is currently only served in Taiji, about 280 miles west of Tokyo, but town authorities plan to go ahead with construction of a dolphin processing plant costing 330m yen (£1.4m) that will ship meat across the country.