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The Toxic Saga of the Tsukiji Fish Market

140 points by fern12 9y ago

partycoder 9y ago
One of the few fish markets selling whale meat. But the tourist community keeps tolerating it. update: And for some reason I get downvoted for denouncing something that is against our best interest... whales regulate the oceanic carbon cycle. You kill them and contribute to ocean acidification.
- Cacti 9y ago
  Alright, I'll bite, _how much_ do they regulate the carbon cycle?
  - kobeya 9y ago
    I believe he is referencing the fact that "whale falls" (the ecosystem that subsists for decades on the corpse of a whale that died and sank in deep water) move the mass of the whale to the deep ocean, where it typically doesn't surface except on geologic time. The obvious counter is that even at pre-human population levels the whales are an insignificant fraction of the shallow ocean biomass, and that artificial algea blooms over deep water could easily replace this carbon transfer in a sustainable way. Perhaps more interesting is that the lack of whale falls has probably already driven to extinction many of the deep water species that prey on the drop sites. Those that are left are at risk. And at least until we can catalog the genetic diversity of these ecosystems, that could be a tremendous loss. There may be biological processes adapted there that are useful to us, in bio-engineering or medicine.
    - chadmalik 9y ago
      It's a good measure of the values of our culture that the only argument we can make (that has even a remote change of working) against willfully causing the extinction of great numbers of species is "those species might be useful to us in the future for medicine or engineering".
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - analogic 9y ago
      Also their poops keeps nutrients in the system, feeding algae that consume co2 and feeding stuff that eat algae* *citation needed
  - partycoder 9y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2928761/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2928761/
  - sampo 9y ago
    > _how much_ do they regulate the carbon cycle? "We estimate that rebuilding whale populations would remove 1.6×10^5 tons of carbon each year through sinking whale carcasses." [1] "these changes are small relative to the total ocean carbon sink" [1] The total ocean carbon sink is 10^9 tons of carbon each year [2]. So the changes in whale populations have had a 0.016% influence on the ocean carbon sink. So, not much. But in the future when different geoengineering methods are suggested, maybe their impact in terms of tons of carbon per year could be compared to the size of this effect of stopping whaling altogether. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012444 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink
- hellofunk 9y ago
  That is unfortunate. Whale hunting is illegal now in many countries, but the Japanese do like whale meat and continue to find ways to hunt them. I saw an interesting documentary maybe 4 years ago about how some hunting ships would find whales under the guise of science research, but really harvest them for food. Some countries stopped honoring the scientific licenses of the Japanese ships that allowed them to enter their waters. I'm not sure how much the affinity for whale meat has to do with tourism, though.
  - partycoder 9y ago
    The research rhetoric itself is questionable. Research is expected to at least produce some report or publication, but many of them have produced neither for years.
  - labster 9y ago
    The Japanese people largely don't like whale meat. Its sales have been declining and they're having a hard time convincing children to eat this weird fatty meat. Japanese whaling probably won't last another generation. But the Japanese do like tradition, so for now, whale hunting persists.
- seiferteric 9y ago
  Honestly the entire seafood industry is a disaster. Nearly 80% of the ocean biomass has been destroyed. It's the only part of the food system that still relies on hunting wild populations of animals and between the many countries involved, it's really hard to regulate how much is really being taken. It's very depressing how many species are on the brink because of this.
  - rodgerd 9y ago
    It's the food equivalent of oil drilling. Oddly enough, it seems many folks who are uncomfortable eating land animals for ethical reasons have no qualms about strip-mining the oceans.
    - cooper12 9y ago
      I think those people have their hearts in the right places, but likely just haven't done their research [0] as less attention is paid towards it. Horrible farming conditions are something that happens right on American soil so it's easy to denounce and witness, not so much for the global seafood industry. [0]: Another case is Quinoa which used to be a staple food for poor Bolivians who have now been outpriced by the demand (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans...)
- Larrikin 9y ago
  I'm not for or against, I just don't understand the market. I had whale prepared a few different ways in Japan and they only decent preparation was thinly sliced and raw. It just tasted like a tougher, slightly fishier, worse version of beef. I could understand it if it was significantly cheaper than beef, since domestic and even imported beef can be pricey. But it's often times more expensive than anything but the highest quality. I expect the market will slowly collapse as the Japanese who grew up eating it in school slowly die out. Most people my age had never even eaten it.
  - dnautics 9y ago
    Someone once told me that the actual delicacy is whale blubber. You have to figure out what to do with the rest of the whale.
  - partycoder 9y ago
    Can't you just eat something else?
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    It's an old people thing. Once upon a time whale meat was served in Japanese schools. Those who grew up eating it want to eat it now. They are dying out and the younger generations (us) have no taste for the meat. Try finding anyone in the UK under 60 willing to eat tripe or jellied eels.
    - hkmurakami 9y ago
      Never thought of the nostalgia factor but that makes sense. Fwiw the school means served it because those regions (and the entire country) was too poor to afford any other kind of meat. I believe some traditional crafts use some kind of whale whiskers, but I wouldn't imagine that is that big a factor.
  - etiam 9y ago
    I have seen it suggested that it comes down to bureaucratic territory marking. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749 Reads like something from the darker portions of a Douglas Adams novel, but I find it entirely plausible.
- rsync 9y ago
  "update: And for some reason I get downvoted for denouncing something that is against our best interest..." I downvoted you for complaining about, or questioning, your downvotes. Don't do that.
  - throwawaymaroon 9y ago
    :/ I don't really enjoy this smugness, either.
  - cooper12 9y ago
    You sure put them in their place. +1 e-peen. That'll teach those damn karma whores. Keep fighting the good fight. Fugg the whales xD.
- fiblye 9y ago
  A few hundred whales, particularly the non-endangered minke whales targeted by Japan, won't disrupt anything. The west's obsession with beef is a much larger environmental issue than eating whale ever will be. On that note, much of the whale I've seen, bought, and eaten in Japan has come from Iceland. Norway also seems to kill more whales than Japan does, yet the whaling in Europe is completely ignored. Japan's "otherness" makes it easy to target them, and it's obvious since I see the whaling issue frequently come up even when it's not related to the topic at all aside from "Japan" or "fishing" being mentioned.
NegativeLatency 9y ago
It's really frustrating how hard it is to properly manage/use a resource like the ocean. We're not running out of chicken, but we are running out of fish.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  Because we are feeding the fish to the chickens. We provide the calories for the chicken to grow, but we harvest fish without such inputs. If we were harvesting wild chickens, or at least chickens that caught their own food in the wild, we would certainly wipe them out in a matter of days if not hours.
  - HillaryBriss 9y ago
    we're also feeding fish meal (from the ocean) to farmed salmon in aquaculture operations i think it was Cousteau who said that farming carnivorous fish like salmon was just a terrible idea. it requires a really high ratio of fish meal protein to salmon protein, something like 6 to 1. we'd be better off farming more fish that behave like Tilapia. they can eat their own excrement.
    - jacobush 9y ago
      I think you have to work on that pitch a little. Eats its own shit?
      - kazagistar 9y ago
        Whatever, Tilapia is tasty and ecological.
        jacobush 9y ago
        Yes, I like Tilapia too. But the pitch may need tuning nevertheless. :)
      - Tharkun 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
donw 9y ago
Funnily enough, I live in Toyosu, and can see where the market should have been moved to from my house. The cause is simple enough: graft and corruption on all levels and at a massive scale, exposed in large part by Yuriko Koike (the relatively new governor of Tokyo).
Reason077 9y ago
Some similarities to the Berlin Brandenburg Airport saga. They were only a few weeks away from a planned move of all the airlines into the new airport in 2012, when it turned out there were massive flaws in the design and construction, and allegations of corruption. Now it's 2017 and the airport still isn't ready... Maybe 2019? https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/01/economist-explains-18 https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/01/e...
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Tsukiji is the most exalted fish market on earth, the sort of humbling place that causes the likes of globally worshipped god-chef René Redzepi to deem it one of the “seven culinary wonders of the world.” What a cringe-worthy sentence that is. Also what a load of crap that sentence is. I'm guessing the writer has never actually been. Tsukiji is a wholesale fish market. Its smelly, cold and wet with lots of flash frozen fish sitting on warehouse pallets. Just like what you would expect a wholesale fish market to be. It just happens to be in Tokyo.
- URSpider94 9y ago
  I highly disagree. I have visited many times, and I find it to be a truly magical place. The mind-boggling variety of life from the sea, the frenetic energy, and the tuna auctioned for tens of thousands of dollars - it made an indelible impression on me.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"I highly disagree. I have visited many times, and I find it to be a truly magical place." I am curious how many other fish markets have you been to? Mexico City and New York City have similar scale fish markets with just as many varieties and with just as much commerce. I'm guessing someone like Anthony Bourdain or some other TV food celebrity put Tsukiji on the tourist map and so now people feel compelled to see something special in it. And I honestly can't understand why anyone would get up before dawn to go to a 5:30AM fish auction if they didn't work in the business and understood Japanese.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      > And I honestly can't understand why anyone would get up before dawn to go to a 5:30AM fish auction if they didn't work in the business and understood Japanese. You know why. Hipsters do it for bragging rights.
      - Larrikin 9y ago
        Or you know it's actually an interesting experience. Have you done it?
trhway 9y ago
>It’s also fairly obvious that the fishmongers weren’t widely consulted during the construction process. The shiny new stalls for vendors are closed off in an attempt to be more sanitary, but the design deeply limits the mobility of the fishmongers, especially when cutting large hunks of fish. (In one television program about the new space, a wholesaler showed just how difficult it is to go about his business of slicing tuna as his elbows repeatedly bumped up against the cubicle-tight walls.) s/fishmongers/programmers/g "It’s also fairly obvious that the programmers weren’t widely consulted during the office remodeling process. The shiny new office for the programmers is an open space in an attempt to be a more collaborative environment, but the design deeply limits the ability to focus of the programmers, especially when working on the complex pieces of code. (In one twitter periscope stream about the new space, a programmer live tweeted just how difficult it is to go about his business of coding as his focus was repeatedly broken and/or his attention was repeatedly called for by the multitude of other people's happenings in the wide open space of the office around him.)
smegel 9y ago
For a country that functions so well, it's amazing it can still have such occurrences of dysfunction and corruption. Sounds like this mayor would be a good prime minister.

140 points by fern12 9y ago

One of the few fish markets selling whale meat. But the tourist community keeps tolerating it. update: And for some reason I get downvoted for denouncing something that is against our best interest... whales regulate the oceanic carbon cycle. You kill them and contribute to ocean acidification.

Cacti 9y ago
Alright, I'll bite, _how much_ do they regulate the carbon cycle?
- kobeya 9y ago
  I believe he is referencing the fact that "whale falls" (the ecosystem that subsists for decades on the corpse of a whale that died and sank in deep water) move the mass of the whale to the deep ocean, where it typically doesn't surface except on geologic time. The obvious counter is that even at pre-human population levels the whales are an insignificant fraction of the shallow ocean biomass, and that artificial algea blooms over deep water could easily replace this carbon transfer in a sustainable way. Perhaps more interesting is that the lack of whale falls has probably already driven to extinction many of the deep water species that prey on the drop sites. Those that are left are at risk. And at least until we can catalog the genetic diversity of these ecosystems, that could be a tremendous loss. There may be biological processes adapted there that are useful to us, in bio-engineering or medicine.
  - chadmalik 9y ago
    It's a good measure of the values of our culture that the only argument we can make (that has even a remote change of working) against willfully causing the extinction of great numbers of species is "those species might be useful to us in the future for medicine or engineering".
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - analogic 9y ago
    Also their poops keeps nutrients in the system, feeding algae that consume co2 and feeding stuff that eat algae* *citation needed
- partycoder 9y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2928761/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2928761/
- sampo 9y ago
  > _how much_ do they regulate the carbon cycle? "We estimate that rebuilding whale populations would remove 1.6×10^5 tons of carbon each year through sinking whale carcasses." [1] "these changes are small relative to the total ocean carbon sink" [1] The total ocean carbon sink is 10^9 tons of carbon each year [2]. So the changes in whale populations have had a 0.016% influence on the ocean carbon sink. So, not much. But in the future when different geoengineering methods are suggested, maybe their impact in terms of tons of carbon per year could be compared to the size of this effect of stopping whaling altogether. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0012444 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sink
hellofunk 9y ago
That is unfortunate. Whale hunting is illegal now in many countries, but the Japanese do like whale meat and continue to find ways to hunt them. I saw an interesting documentary maybe 4 years ago about how some hunting ships would find whales under the guise of science research, but really harvest them for food. Some countries stopped honoring the scientific licenses of the Japanese ships that allowed them to enter their waters. I'm not sure how much the affinity for whale meat has to do with tourism, though.
- partycoder 9y ago
  The research rhetoric itself is questionable. Research is expected to at least produce some report or publication, but many of them have produced neither for years.
- labster 9y ago
  The Japanese people largely don't like whale meat. Its sales have been declining and they're having a hard time convincing children to eat this weird fatty meat. Japanese whaling probably won't last another generation. But the Japanese do like tradition, so for now, whale hunting persists.
seiferteric 9y ago
Honestly the entire seafood industry is a disaster. Nearly 80% of the ocean biomass has been destroyed. It's the only part of the food system that still relies on hunting wild populations of animals and between the many countries involved, it's really hard to regulate how much is really being taken. It's very depressing how many species are on the brink because of this.
- rodgerd 9y ago
  It's the food equivalent of oil drilling. Oddly enough, it seems many folks who are uncomfortable eating land animals for ethical reasons have no qualms about strip-mining the oceans.
  - cooper12 9y ago
    I think those people have their hearts in the right places, but likely just haven't done their research [0] as less attention is paid towards it. Horrible farming conditions are something that happens right on American soil so it's easy to denounce and witness, not so much for the global seafood industry. [0]: Another case is Quinoa which used to be a staple food for poor Bolivians who have now been outpriced by the demand (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans...)
Larrikin 9y ago
I'm not for or against, I just don't understand the market. I had whale prepared a few different ways in Japan and they only decent preparation was thinly sliced and raw. It just tasted like a tougher, slightly fishier, worse version of beef. I could understand it if it was significantly cheaper than beef, since domestic and even imported beef can be pricey. But it's often times more expensive than anything but the highest quality. I expect the market will slowly collapse as the Japanese who grew up eating it in school slowly die out. Most people my age had never even eaten it.
- dnautics 9y ago
  Someone once told me that the actual delicacy is whale blubber. You have to figure out what to do with the rest of the whale.
- partycoder 9y ago
  Can't you just eat something else?
- sandworm101 9y ago
  It's an old people thing. Once upon a time whale meat was served in Japanese schools. Those who grew up eating it want to eat it now. They are dying out and the younger generations (us) have no taste for the meat. Try finding anyone in the UK under 60 willing to eat tripe or jellied eels.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    Never thought of the nostalgia factor but that makes sense. Fwiw the school means served it because those regions (and the entire country) was too poor to afford any other kind of meat. I believe some traditional crafts use some kind of whale whiskers, but I wouldn't imagine that is that big a factor.
- etiam 9y ago
  I have seen it suggested that it comes down to bureaucratic territory marking. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749 Reads like something from the darker portions of a Douglas Adams novel, but I find it entirely plausible.
rsync 9y ago
"update: And for some reason I get downvoted for denouncing something that is against our best interest..." I downvoted you for complaining about, or questioning, your downvotes. Don't do that.
- throwawaymaroon 9y ago
  :/ I don't really enjoy this smugness, either.
- cooper12 9y ago
  You sure put them in their place. +1 e-peen. That'll teach those damn karma whores. Keep fighting the good fight. Fugg the whales xD.
fiblye 9y ago
A few hundred whales, particularly the non-endangered minke whales targeted by Japan, won't disrupt anything. The west's obsession with beef is a much larger environmental issue than eating whale ever will be. On that note, much of the whale I've seen, bought, and eaten in Japan has come from Iceland. Norway also seems to kill more whales than Japan does, yet the whaling in Europe is completely ignored. Japan's "otherness" makes it easy to target them, and it's obvious since I see the whaling issue frequently come up even when it's not related to the topic at all aside from "Japan" or "fishing" being mentioned.

NegativeLatency 9y ago

It's really frustrating how hard it is to properly manage/use a resource like the ocean. We're not running out of chicken, but we are running out of fish.

sandworm101 9y ago
Because we are feeding the fish to the chickens. We provide the calories for the chicken to grow, but we harvest fish without such inputs. If we were harvesting wild chickens, or at least chickens that caught their own food in the wild, we would certainly wipe them out in a matter of days if not hours.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  we're also feeding fish meal (from the ocean) to farmed salmon in aquaculture operations i think it was Cousteau who said that farming carnivorous fish like salmon was just a terrible idea. it requires a really high ratio of fish meal protein to salmon protein, something like 6 to 1. we'd be better off farming more fish that behave like Tilapia. they can eat their own excrement.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    I think you have to work on that pitch a little. Eats its own shit?
    - kazagistar 9y ago
      Whatever, Tilapia is tasty and ecological.
      - jacobush 9y ago
        Yes, I like Tilapia too. But the pitch may need tuning nevertheless. :)
    - Tharkun 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

donw 9y ago

Funnily enough, I live in Toyosu, and can see where the market should have been moved to from my house. The cause is simple enough: graft and corruption on all levels and at a massive scale, exposed in large part by Yuriko Koike (the relatively new governor of Tokyo).

Reason077 9y ago

Some similarities to the Berlin Brandenburg Airport saga. They were only a few weeks away from a planned move of all the airlines into the new airport in 2012, when it turned out there were massive flaws in the design and construction, and allegations of corruption. Now it's 2017 and the airport still isn't ready... Maybe 2019? https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/01/economist-explains-18 https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/01/e...

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Tsukiji is the most exalted fish market on earth, the sort of humbling place that causes the likes of globally worshipped god-chef René Redzepi to deem it one of the “seven culinary wonders of the world.” What a cringe-worthy sentence that is. Also what a load of crap that sentence is. I'm guessing the writer has never actually been. Tsukiji is a wholesale fish market. Its smelly, cold and wet with lots of flash frozen fish sitting on warehouse pallets. Just like what you would expect a wholesale fish market to be. It just happens to be in Tokyo.

URSpider94 9y ago
I highly disagree. I have visited many times, and I find it to be a truly magical place. The mind-boggling variety of life from the sea, the frenetic energy, and the tuna auctioned for tens of thousands of dollars - it made an indelible impression on me.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"I highly disagree. I have visited many times, and I find it to be a truly magical place." I am curious how many other fish markets have you been to? Mexico City and New York City have similar scale fish markets with just as many varieties and with just as much commerce. I'm guessing someone like Anthony Bourdain or some other TV food celebrity put Tsukiji on the tourist map and so now people feel compelled to see something special in it. And I honestly can't understand why anyone would get up before dawn to go to a 5:30AM fish auction if they didn't work in the business and understood Japanese.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > And I honestly can't understand why anyone would get up before dawn to go to a 5:30AM fish auction if they didn't work in the business and understood Japanese. You know why. Hipsters do it for bragging rights.
    - Larrikin 9y ago
      Or you know it's actually an interesting experience. Have you done it?

trhway 9y ago

>It’s also fairly obvious that the fishmongers weren’t widely consulted during the construction process. The shiny new stalls for vendors are closed off in an attempt to be more sanitary, but the design deeply limits the mobility of the fishmongers, especially when cutting large hunks of fish. (In one television program about the new space, a wholesaler showed just how difficult it is to go about his business of slicing tuna as his elbows repeatedly bumped up against the cubicle-tight walls.) s/fishmongers/programmers/g "It’s also fairly obvious that the programmers weren’t widely consulted during the office remodeling process. The shiny new office for the programmers is an open space in an attempt to be a more collaborative environment, but the design deeply limits the ability to focus of the programmers, especially when working on the complex pieces of code. (In one twitter periscope stream about the new space, a programmer live tweeted just how difficult it is to go about his business of coding as his focus was repeatedly broken and/or his attention was repeatedly called for by the multitude of other people's happenings in the wide open space of the office around him.)

smegel 9y ago

For a country that functions so well, it's amazing it can still have such occurrences of dysfunction and corruption. Sounds like this mayor would be a good prime minister.