Japanese Whales

In japan, some school children are sent on trips to watch whales be cut apart as Japan Probe reports...

As pro-whaling and pro-conservation countries square off on the other side of the globe, curious Japanese schoolgirl Yuna Suzuki, 10, got a vivid first-hand look at the issue.

Yuna and a few dozen classmates from local elementary schools visited the whale slaughterhouse in Wadamachi, one of Japan’s four coastal towns allowed to catch a small number of the ocean giants.

Clutching a notebook and a pencil, Yuna and her classmates occupied the front row of the crowd Wednesday, bending forward to watch a 10-metre (33-foot) animal — the town’s first catch of the three-month season — be dismembered.

“Look! That’s her heart!” Yuna said to her friends with her face half covered by her hand. “Oh no, so much blood is gushing out.”
Another schoolgirl, Honami Shoji, 11, said, “I feel bad for the animal.”

“But we also eat the meat and appreciate it,” she said calmly. “We’re lucky to be born in this town.”

Schoolchildren of Wadamachi, about 70 kilometres (45 miles) southeast of Tokyo, have watched the whale slaughter since 1999 in this town which is allowed to catch 26 Baird’s beaked whales each season.

Do you think that its good or bad for kids to see stuff like this? I need to know more about the subject before I form a solid opinion. While I think its good for children to know where meat comes from, I'm not sure that this is the way to do it.

On a related note, I remember one of my cousins telling me how she saw a cow being butchered when she was young. The cow was looking at her crying. She decided to become a vegetarian from that day.
Any veggies here? Picture of maid serving whale soup from Moe Imouto.