Monkeybizness

Japan’s peak whaling research body has released startling new evidence that whale meat is tasty, embarrassing international critics who claimed the nation’s research program was just a front for commercial whaling.

“You don’t establish that whale meat is tasty overnight. It takes years and years of rigorous scientific endeavour,” said Institute for Cetacean Research spokesman Glen Inwood.

Mr Inwood said the new research would be an invaluable addition to the body of scientific literature on whales.

“The research was completed after exhaustive sampling of whale meat by a broad cross-section of Japanese society,” he said. “We also asked participants in the study to pay for the meat so we could understand the influence of commercial imperatives when judging the taste of whale meat.”

“Many foreign governments - particularly Australia - have been fond of claiming Japan was not conducting any actual whale research. I think these findings will put that rumour to bed.”

Other key findings included:

• Whales live in the Antarctic.
• Whales die when you shoot them with a harpoon.
• Sea Shepherd protesters are really annoying.

Mr Inwood conceded Japan had fallen 299 whales short of its 2008 target, but said this was because they did not see quite so many of them this year.

“I think the question of why whale numbers are falling is an important one. Given the success of our most recent research, we feel that this may be the next area of study that we turn our attention to. I think that given 2-3 years and 1800-odd whales, we might be in a position to put forward a hypothesis on why this phenomenon is occurring.”

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