Whale Meat Sushi Got Restaurant in a Whale of Trouble

Endangered Species, that's what's for dinner!

A trendy Santa Monica Sushi Restaurant, funnily enough named "Hump", was caught selling whale.

The Hump came under fire after allegations surfaced in Tuesday's New York Times that it had served meat from an endangered sei whale, possibly straight from the trunk of a white Mercedes-Benz.

To provide evidence, federal agents and animal activists had cooperated in a video sting orchestrated by the associate producer of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove." ...

Teglas said they enlisted two female animal activists -- both vegans -- and used a tiny video camera to record them as they were served a $600 omakase, or chef's choice, meal at the Hump. The two activists asked whether they could get whale meat, and a waitress then served eight pieces of what she called "whale," according to an affidavit provided by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

The activists bagged samples of the meat and slipped them into a purse. The samples were sent to Scott Baker, associate director of the highly regarded Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. Baker determined that the meat was sei whale.


Link (Photo: Al Seib / LA Times)

The activists bagged samples of the meat and slipped them into a purse. The samples were sent to Scott Baker, associate director of the highly regarded Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. Baker determined that the meat was sei whale.
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Never been to "The Hump" but I have been to it's sister restaurant "Typhoon," (downstairs, same owner) which is infamous for offering insects on the menu. Unlike the whale meat, the crickets and water bugs were obtained legally.
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I'm from one of the few whale hunting nations in the world and I can verify that whale meat is quite tasty. It's nothing worth driving a species to extinction over either so personally I believe my countrymen should give it up.
I also personally believe we should limit our meat intake to 1-2 meat portions per week and ensure that the animal was killed humanely and lived under cruelty-free living conditions.

Having said that, I do worry about the motives of people like the makers of The Cove and some Animal Rescue groups (who routinely complain about horses being sold to meat production).
This is because you can't send a vegan to preach about responsible meat consumption anymore than you can have the pope preaching about sexual behavior (gay marriage, condoms, etc.).
A vegan on the missionary trail (as opposed to vegans who don't feel the need to preach) will always have that as his/her ultimate purpose to convince you to give up meat entirely.
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Some asshole wants the "thrill" (bitch, please) of eating something exotic – forbidden even!!! Oooh how exciting!! At the expense of a whole species, that's risking extinction? I hope they burn in hell.
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@Sue: The summary doesn't include this, but Scott Baker did use DNA sequence data to ID the meat as Sei whale. He's been involved in many years of work to ID whale in Japanese fish markets, and has a lot of experience with DNA-based identification.
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