Hell hath no fury like a dolphin scorned

A new month, a new tainted food scare.

What chemical or organic poison is currently out to tempt the palate? Whale meat, saturated with "alarming" levels of mercury, intended for... wait for it... Japanese schoolchildren.

Now that the panic of "Oh my God, I ate whale meat just last week!" has subsided, as this has not affected the perfect bubble that is North America, read on (and keep eating that delicious blowhole sandwich).

The Globe reports through Reuters that an assemblyman in Taiji discovered the tainted meat, where "two samples of short-finned pilot whale had mercury levels 10 to 16 times more than advised by the Health Ministry" and further samples had "10-12 times more methyl mercury than advised levels."

Contrary to what some may think, the interesting bit in this story is not that the meat was intended to be served without inspection by local authorities. Nor is it that bioaccumulation (the process of accumulation leading to progressively higher concentrations of a contaminant up through the food chain, via predators ingesting prey that have previously accumulated contaminants in their body tissue - thanks, Google, for helping me remember Grade 9 Geography) is really starting to show in ecosystems. While these do have that certain journalistic je ne sais quoi, I think I've pinpointed the real scoop.

Short-finned pilot whales are part of the dolphin family. Dolphins are highly intelligent. Dolphins are also pissed off, as penguins, previously the stuffy, tuxedoed snobs of the sea, have waddled, tap danced, and now surfed into our hearts. What happens when a highly intelligent, pissed off creature - who has access to methyl Mercury - realizes its going to be eaten by a bunch of Japanese schoolchildren that turned down Flipper AGAIN for Farce of the Penguins?

Oh, readers, I think you know.

What can you do to make sure we can enjoy delicious dolphin cousins for years to come? Firstly, if you have friended the rockhopper penguin Lovelace on facebook like I told you to, go and unfriend him right now. We don't want to make the dolphins think that we're switching over to penguin eggs because we like them better. And for that matter, if someone offers you a penguin egg, state very loudly, in the direction of the Pacific Ocean, "Oh, Christ, don't make me sick" (and take the egg ever so sneakily for an omelette).

This is all an assumption, readers, but I'm pretty sure I've uncovered the real roots to this story.

...

My back-up hunch? Sailor Mercury is behind this. She's a sailor, she's Mercury, it all makes sense.