A high schooler in Essex (next door to Gloucester) is taking up the issue of whaling with Gorton's. Here's a snippet from the Boston Globe article:
Even Gorton's is apparently taken by the teen's persistence. In response to an e-mail Weinstein recently sent the company -- ''I'm a 17-year-old on a mission to stop whaling," she informed them -- a Gorton's vice president wrote back promptly.
''Gorton's has strongly encouraged Nissui both privately and publicly to use whatever influence they have to appeal to the Japanese government to stop whaling," wrote Dave Weber, vice president of environmental affairs, in a Jan. 30 e-mail. ''We have also asked them to sever any connections they might have with the Japanese government's whaling program."
Yet Gorton's also says its hands are tied.
''It's a difficult position we're in," Judson Reis, Gorton's vice president of marketing, said in an interview. ''We are taking it up with Nissui, but really this [whaling] program and this decision [to stop whaling] is up to the Japanese government."
A top local whale researcher agrees.
''Rather than going after Gorton's, people should go after the US government to get them to embargo Japanese fisheries products," said Mason Weinrich, executive director of the Whale Center of New England in Gloucester, and a member of the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission.
''Gorton's is essentially powerless in this whole thing," Weinrich said.
The company, he added, is not the bad guy and has, in fact, generously contributed to his whale research programs for nearly two decades. Gorton's, in Gloucester for more than 150 years, is often the first door residents knock when trying to raise money for civic causes, said Michael Costello, director of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce.
''It's a situation where they never, in anybody's eyes, can be characterized as uncaring or ruthless or hell-bent for making money," he said.
Now Weinstein, an animal lover who started on a seemingly clear mission to save whales, is grappling with a complex, geopolitical debate cast in many shades of gray.
I personally like the BS that Gorton's is promulgating. Nissui, owns these whaling boats and lobbies under 'authentic' research. What a pile. Sorry for the rant but when a company starts spinning crap to a teen it's a little much for me to take. Grrrrh. X
