"Whale meat is a real delicacy, so this is the only way we can offer whale sushi to our customers," he said, placing the costly slivers onto rice balls in his shop where figurines of the sea mammals decorate the walls.

Ayukawahama was once a major whaling port, where fishermen would drag the ocean giants into harbour, colouring the water red and, elder residents recall, sending the stench of whale carcasses wafting through town.

Temples dedicated to the souls of whales attest to the town's centuries-old heritage, and a trickle of tourists still file through a whaling museum that boasts skeletons, hunting tools, educational displays and a 3-D cinema.

But the industry has long been in decline, especially since commercial whaling was banned in 1986, although Japanese harpoon ships still harvest the animals as far as Antarctic waters in the name of "scientific research".

Today the town, on Honshu island northeast of Tokyo, has an abandoned feel. The population has fallen by three quarters since the 1960s to about 4,000, and only about 40 people are still actively involved in the whale trade.

Furuuchi, in his 60s, says the supply of whale meat has dropped even more this year since environmental activists managed to drastically reduce the cull through a campaign of harassment in the past Antarctic hunting season.

"Whale meat consumption is low because there is no supply, not because there is no demand," the sushi seller said. "If the meat was available and cheaper, I would actively serve it. People who want to eat whale will come."

Japan's whaling has drawn sharp international criticism from nations including Australia, a dispute that is certain to flare again this week at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco.

Furuuchi, like many Japanese, says whale is like any other food and foreigners misunderstand what has long been a Japanese culinary tradition.

"Japan has been eating whale since the (1868) Meiji Restoration so it's hard to imagine we'll never eat it again," he said, recollecting how whales caught off Japan's Pacific coast were once the town's lifeline.

Locals take pride in a tradition of not wasting any part of the whale. Its teeth have been used for art and accessories, its organs ground into fish feed and fertiliser, and the "beard" in their mouth, which whales use to filter plankton and krill from water, has been fashioned into tennis racket strings.

Different species have been eaten raw as sashimi or sushi, pan-fried in butter, boiled in soy sauce, eaten as shabu-shabu or in miso soup and, more recently, ground up for spaghetti sauce or put on sticks as hot dogs.

For many elderly Japanese, who ate whale bacon in the lean post-World War II years, it is a nostalgic meal. For younger generations raised on a more Western diet, it has become an occasional, expensive culinary curiosity.

Japan claims its Antarctic and Northwest Pacific hunts are for research purposes, to study whale populations in order to manage marine resources, but it has made no secret of the fact that the meat is sold and eaten.

Throughout every year in Ayukawahama, a total of about 60 minke whales are unloaded onto the docks, cut up and distributed to traders, according to Kunio Suno, the president of local fish wholesaler Ishinomaki Uoichiba.

Contractor Kyodo Senpaku, which operates Japan's whaling vessels, takes orders from customers and sets the market price depending on the size and quality of the catch, with some whale cuts more expensive than others.

For frozen Minke whale caught in Antarctic waters, a kilogram of red meat has an average wholesale price of up to 3,000 yen (33 dollars), according to Suno, who also sits on a government panel for marine products.

Minke whales caught in Japan's coastal waters -- including animals that become entangled in fishing nets -- are also sold and can fetch as much as 7,000 yen per kilogram (35 dollars per pound) at auctions.

One trader said that the most coveted part of the whale's tail, a fatty meat, recently sold for 100,000 yen a kilo in a whaling port in northern Hokkaido to a major trading house which sold it on to a luxury client.

"The best parts are sold in the fancy restaurants in the cities. We only get the less tasty parts," said Toshihiro Saito, 59, a shopkeeper working in what used to be called "Whale Road," today a largely shuttered street.

Like others in the industry, Suno is fiercely defensive of whaling.

"Japan should make an effort to argue on a scientific basis that whaling is sustainable," he said. "It is arrogant for countries to impose their ideas of what to eat on other cultures."

Many locals, including Furuuchi, say they would favour a proposal before the IWC this week which would legitimise Japanese commercial whaling in its coastal waters in return for a phased reduction of its Antarctic hunt.

"Coastal minkes have very tender meat," he said. "If we could hunt some 100 or 200 of them, I think demand and supply would be well balanced.

"Whaling in the Antarctic won't help revive the local economy. The frozen meat is black and hard. It just doesn't work for sushi. It's not very good."

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