--- title: Sushi Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Serving Whale Meat description: The owners of a defunct sushi restaurant pled guilty to serving whale meat on Tuesday, more than four years after a documentary film crew captured the illicit meal on tape. canonical: https://time.com/3592249/sushi-restaurant-whale-meat-guilty/ author: Dan Kedmey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-18T17:09:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:14:41.512Z og:title: Sushi Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Serving Whale Meat og:description: The owners of a defunct sushi restaurant pled guilty to serving whale meat on Tuesday, more than four years after a documentary film crew captured the illicit meal on tape. og:url: https://time.com/3592249/sushi-restaurant-whale-meat-guilty/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1211bb4184deb2ad/6987694d0b72e383e76dbf9a/97622427.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3688 og:image:height: 2075 og:image:alt: The Hump Restaurant is seen in Santa Mon og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sushi Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Serving Whale Meat twitter:description: The owners of a defunct sushi restaurant pled guilty to serving whale meat on Tuesday, more than four years after a documentary film crew captured the illicit meal on tape. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1211bb4184deb2ad/6987694d0b72e383e76dbf9a/97622427.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Sushi Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Serving Whale Meat > Sponsored content. 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Gabriel Bouys —AFP/Getty Images  by [Dan Kedmey](https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/)  ## Dan Kedmey Nov 18, 2014 5:09 PM UTC The owners of a defunct sushi restaurant [pled](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-whale-meat-owner-guilty-plea-20141117-story.html) guilty Tuesday to serving whale meat, more than four years after a documentary film crew captured the illicit meal on tape. Brian Vidor, owner of The Hump restaurant in Santa Monica, California, and his parent company, Typhoon Restaurant Inc., agreed to pay a $27,500 fine for slicing up a serving of Sei whale, an endangered species protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Los Angeles _Times_ [reports](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-whale-meat-owner-guilty-plea-20141117-story.html). Sushi chefs at the Hump unwittingly served the meat to undercover agents for the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The scene was captured on film by the documentarians behind _The Cove_, an Academy Award-winning expose of the dolphin meat trade. \[[_L.A. Times_](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-whale-meat-owner-guilty-plea-20141117-story.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3592249/sushi-restaurant-whale-meat-guilty/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3592249/sushi-restaurant-whale-meat-guilty/"},"headline":"Sushi Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Serving Whale Meat","datePublished":"2014-11-18T17:09:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:14:41.512Z","description":"After the documentarians behind The Cove got footage of the crime","url":"https://time.com/3592249/sushi-restaurant-whale-meat-guilty/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Food & Drink","animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1211bb4184deb2ad/6987694d0b72e383e76dbf9a/97622427.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Dan Kedmey","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1211bb4184deb2ad/6987694d0b72e383e76dbf9a/97622427.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Hump Restaurant is seen in Santa Mon","caption":"The Hump Restaurant is seen in Santa Mon","creditText":"Gabriel Bouys —AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3592249/sushi-restaurant-whale-meat-guilty/","name":"Sushi Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Serving Whale Meat"}}]}] ```