Recent news reports have highlighted the intelligence of dolphins, and we also know that these incredible cetaceans are a very important part of the marine ecosystem. Protected by law in most places, they also have a tendency to carry heavy metals and other toxins in their flesh. For these reasons and others, it came as a shock to some when an investigative reporter discovered that restaurants in Rome and near Civitavecchia were serving illicit dolphin meat.
Reporter Uncovers Substantial Black Market for Dried Dolphin Meat
A journalist working for Silvio Berlusconi’s television channel Italia Uno secretly filmed a costly meal recently in an effort to uncover a thriving black market demand for dried dolphin meat. The meal’s centerpiece was a salad topped with flakes of thin-sliced dried dolphin meat. The restaurant’s owner was shown warning diners “You didn’t eat this in my place, right?”
Ciro Lungo, who is head of the Protected Species Unit of the Italian environmental police Corpo Forestale dello Stato, told reporters that before viewing the television report, he had mistakenly dismissed rumors of restaurants serving dolphin meat as mere fantasy. He went on to state: “I can confirm an investigation into this matter is in progress.”
The bill paid by the undercover film crew came to 100 Euros apiece, and that was without wine. One wholesaler who was also targeted by the film crew claimed that the price per kilogram of dolphin meat could be as high as 900 Euros in Rome. Upon hearing this, Lungo said that the high prices indicated that “substantial demand” exists for the dried meat.
The wholesaler told undercover reporters that the meat was available in several restaurants, although it would never be found written on the menu. Clients who wanted to order it could ask for it by its code name, “Black.” It seems that restaurants that serve it do not attempt to replace it with another substance; meat carried out by the undercover crew underwent DNA testing and was confirmed to be dolphin flesh.
As part of their investigative report, the team of undercover journalists interviewed fishermen, who told them that much of the meat sold to wholesalers came from dolphins that were caught in nets intended to capture legal species. The majority of those, they said, were already deceased when pulled from the water. One fishermen told a reporter that dolphins that were not dead were killed: “If they aren’t dead, they club them on the head,” he said. Another fisherman admitted that dolphins are sometimes targeted intentionally. “If they know that dolphins are there, you cast the nets there.”
Dolphins that die in fishing nets are supposed to be handed over to the Italian Coast Guard. But fishermen find it easy to flout the law. The restaurant owner who served the television team said that there is an easy way around the rules. “They cut off the head. They cut off the fins and everything,” he said, adding that “if they’re stopped, they say it’s a shark.”
Now that the practice of serving black market dolphin meat has come to light, it is hoped that Italy’s law enforcement officials will crack down on restaurants serving the flesh as well as the wholesalers and fishermen who supply them. Not only is it wrong to promote endangered animals as food, it’s wrong to serve potentially tainted meals to consumers.