Monday, July 20, was Marine Day in Japan, a national holiday “to give thanks to the ocean.” The holiday was celebrated with an enormous fish tank set up in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district. Small sharks swam around these streetside aquariums for people to admire. The week before the holiday, hundreds of those sharks’ kin were piled up on a dock in Kesen-numa after having their fins hacked off for shark fin soup.
I have no doubt that Japan is grateful for the ocean’s bounty. So grateful, in fact, that the government continually lobbies against international protections for endangered marine species like the bluefin tuna, and flaunts their disregard for international law when it comes to whaling. The holiday not only comes on the tail of the discovery of the shark massacre, but it’s also just days after the start of Japan’s summer whaling mission in the Northwest Pacific ocean, where they plan to kill 100 minke whales, 100 sei whales, 50 Brydes whales and 10 sperm whales.
