A few items relating to the gastronomic leg of the cetacean research cycle. Just in case you're contemplating researching some whale meat some time.

From National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition Saturday" of May 26, an audio report on the cooking of whale meat by the Inupiat people of Alaska's North Slope, a practice which is now safe until at least 2012.

From The Guardian's food blog, a discussion of the consumption research of whale meat in Japan, complete with a photo of a whale burger. Would you like fries with your McMinke, sir? (Don't laugh yet. Read on.)

On the other hand, there's a report from Bloomberg that Kyokuyo Co. of Japan has ceased selling whale meat after seventy years in the business. Japan's three largest commercial whale meat traders have all now withdrawn from the market, one of which was a supplier of seafood for the McDonald's Filet-o-Fish.

Though, to be fair, there is no claim that the famed slab of battered fish and tartare sauce on a luke-warm bread roll has ever contained any McMinke.

And now for something completely different... the Anchorage Daily News website has a special section devoted to salmon.