BERLIN - Dead whales and dolphins were laid out on ice in front of the German capital's best-known landmark on Monday in a Greenpeace protest ahead of a key international whaling conference next week.
The environmental group said the whales and dolphins on show at the Brandenburg Gate had been collected from European beaches, demonstrating that many were killed during commercial fishing or in accidents with ships.
"Three hundred thousand whales and dolphins drown in fishing nets each year and it is impossible to calculate how many more fall victim to pollution, ship strikes, the impacts of sonar or climate change," said Greenpeace marine biologist Stefanie Werner.
"How can pro-whaling nations justify hunting them as well?"
More than 70 nations will gather next week in Anchorage, Alaska, for the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission amid concerns that one of the world's leading whaling nations, Japan, could quit the global body.
Iceland and Norway are expected to apply pressure for a formal resumption of commercial whaling. Iceland and Norway are already the only nations to conduct outright commercial whaling in defiance of a global moratorium introduced in 1986.
Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, kills more than 1,000 whales a year using a loophole that allows hunting for scientific research.
"Governments attending the IWC must make a commitment to defend the whales, not the whaling industry," Werner said.
"The drive to resume commercial hunting is one of the most extreme examples of governments failure to protect our oceans in their entirety."
She said defending the moratorium would be a "clear signal" that the protection of oceans was being taken seriously.
05/21/2007 10:33 GMT