Eating whale may add mercury to your hair

While there’s something irritating about this fact being used as a convenient reason to attack the pro-whaling camp when I know the anti-whaling camp’s true motives are more irrational and emotional, if it’s true, I have to admit this is a good reason as any to promote a ban on whaling.

…or for domesticating it in clean waters

This is ridiculous; surely people should have learnt from past whale stories. Eating whale does not add mercury to your hair, eating mercury adds mercury to your hair. Whale meat has tremendous amounts of mercury in it due to the diet of whales (many tens of thousands of small fish). People need to stop the debate about whether whale meat is ethical or not, and throw traditions out the window. If you’re American, you know that eating undercooked meat — like hamburger — or consuming raw egg may very well give you e.coli or salmonella. It doesn’t matter that your grandpa used to be able to eat such things, it’s simply a matter of fact that undercooked food or raw egg nowadays is not 100% safe, and if you get food poisoning from consuming them, it’s entirely your own responsibility. Likewise, anyone who really cares about their health should not be eating whale, or at least consume it VERY infrequently.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030520082803.htm

For that matter, shark fin has even more mercury than whales
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=shark+fin+mercury