Greenpeace dump whale at Japanese embassy

Greenpeace hauled a whale carcass, that had died from getting stranded, from the Baltic coast to Berlin and dumped it in front of the Japanese Embassey to protest against their continued "scientific" whaling. I guess it makes more of a statement than the inflatable whales...


Story from BBC here.

This isn't the answer. The only answer is whale farms.

Gotta admire Greenpeace on this one, now that is what i call making a statement !

it was a fin whale too

oh I was reading that in my Times Newspaper...it's a horrid sight but a bold bold statement.

Fin? Fin? At twenty tonnes he's wuzn't fackin' fin!

maybe an overweight russian , i thought it was too much for a fin?

Killing japanese whalers and feeding them raw to whales would be a more appropriate statement, I reckon.

Probably a lot easier to do than moving a dead whale as well.

Haven't the Royal Navy just decommissioned some old submarines ?

hmmm maybe could be used for one last mission . . . .

@IW that would be like killing the messanger, as long as there is demand someone or the other will keep doing it. we are talking about cultural change here not just killing the whalers

Good work Greenpeace. Unfortunately Sea Shepherd has run out of petrol and can no longer harass the whaling fleet, altho they did manage to prevent 15 days of whaling. I think NZ & Australia should send out a couple of frigates to the whale sanctuary to give the whalers the heebeejeebies. Someone has to make a decent stand sometime.

So, to stop drug trafficing we need to remove the demand for drugs. That's fair enough, but it doesn't work, you have to stop the supply.

Prohibition: the world's most stunningly successful policy for stopping anything. Ever.

The problem there was different, they were trying to get at the effects of the products, not the effects of the production. The failure of the complete prohibition of alcohol production, IMO, was due to the fact that you can't uproot something so deeply entrenched in culture such as drinking in Westren culture. Same goes for Mary-Jane, as far as I can see.

In the whaling business, nobody vigs a cuff about the effects whale meat has on its consumers. The only problem is the extinction of the animals we hold precious in some way. Hence, barring prohibition as bound for failure and cultural change as impossible, the solution of choice should be allowing farming (and making it easier to implement) while prohibiting hunting of wild whales.

2 cents of mine.

Boy would I like to be a whale farmer!!

If only whales ate japanese whalers, but they don't

@Greenpeace: good job!

Dead whales. How depressing. But it's not just the Japanese who do the whaling themselves, the Ecuadorians are doing it large-scale as well.. for the Japanese market of course. 128 million Japanese and 5 million Norwegians vs whatever is left of the whale population. Doesn't look good, does it.
When is a whale really dead?

Why not? They eat seals don't they?

That's only Killer Whales, IW. And they eat other whales as well. But I guess you could feed the Japanese whalers to them.

that song by Andreas Boccilli - Time to say GoodBye keeps going thru my head, wasn't it Greenpeace that used that song sung by whale wails to inform us about the plight of the whales since Japan and Norway started whaling again.

It's not like you can hide a whaling ship in some chic's hoo haa now is it ... I say they should sink every last harpoon totin ship on the planet. tough fucking shit you shouldnt be doing it and if u dont like it , nuke em... how would they like to be wiped out ?

In keeping with the whale theme I thought I would post this story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4627178.stm

It seems Greenpeace hauled the thing from a beach on the baltic to the Japanese embassy in Berlin to make a point to them they don't need to kill any, lo and behold they die themselves anyway every now and then.

Topics merged by admin

When I first read about the dead whale a few days ago, I was saddened. What is it about whales and dolphins that tends to leave one feeling relaxed? Well what ever the reason is I'm disgusted and angered at this stunt by Greenpeace.

Source: Deutscher Welle

I don't think Greenpeace killed the whale... although the article doesn't adequately explain how the whale died.

And although I think their stunt isn't perhaps in the best of taste, I do think it is a good way of drawing attention to their cause.

There used to be a need for commercial whaling, but we can make soap out of other things nowadays, and you can use plastic in corsets instead of whalebone so I really don't understand why the Japanese are still hunting them. This crap about killing a certain number for research really shouldn't be tolerated by the world community any more. The Japanese have caught and killed more than enough to complete their research, and if they want to find out more about whales why don't they just tag them.

If they want to go whaling they should be made to do it using hand thrown harpoons and wooden rowing boats... oh, and it should be televised... what a great reality TV show that would be, a 50 ton whale getting pissed off with ten Japanese men in a rowing boat trying to stick harpoons in him.

They are not sure how the whale got stranded their selfs.
Whale was then moved on to (or will be) some biological center to be investigated into causes of death and so on.

As for killing whales for food or other reasons, its just disgusting and then covering it up as research, yeah right.

Just measure this beast, find out at what rate they grow and then sell it on, got to fund the project some how!

how bout going after little japs (although 99.9 percent of em are decent folk) with harpons in the local baths?

I feel the same way about cod, that Harry Ramsden should hanged by his gonads if you ask me!

Don't get me started on the poor old halibut!!!

Those murderers in Thailand were bloody fisherman as well!! I tell you the world is going to hell in a handcart!

I don't know, maybe they taste good.

If a particular species of whale is not endangered, why is hunting it any different that farming a cow or catching a cod/haddock/halibut? In fact, those right there are a species in danger of extinction. Think about that next time you eat fish and chips.

As for the Greenpeace stunt: I wasn't aware that they are the rightfull owners of all whales. By what right can they take a whale and cart it around whereever they want to for whatever purpose they see fit?


Really? I think it's disgusting and opportunistic. Maybe we should start carting around the bodies of dead people to bring attention to issues of violent crime.

I Think if they are going to foot the bill for disposing of the carcus, the goverment or anyone else for that matter will let them do what they want.


enlighten us unknowliable (spelt that wrong aint I) please!

For me Greenpeace has always meant brave people putting themselves on the line for what they believe in. Trying to stop nuclear waste dumped at sea by piloting small inflatables under where the barrel falls from the dumping ship (thta was before the barrels started being dumped into the sea through the bottom of the ship), and sailing the Rainbow Warrior (or whatever boat it was) into the frogs nuclear test area are just some of the things that can be called mad but admirable. But this stunt is ... well despicable, it's certainly altered my oppinon of them as a group.

You could think that, but you'd be wrong:

Tell you what, I'll pay for disposal of your Gran when she dies, but that means I can do with her as I like.

The people behind this stunt belong in jail.

point taken!

"I really don't understand why the Japanese are still hunting them
I don't know, maybe they taste good."

For the japs whale meat is a delicacy which they've been eating for hundreds of years. Other peoples like caribou, veal, dogs or monkey brains. As with the herring here, which used to be abundent, supplies have been fished to death so that it's now very expensive and someone's making big money out of it. Research is just a cover, nothing more.

Harry Ramsden is the fish an chip king of the north at Guisley near Leeds. The place is huge and caters for whole coachloads of starving tourists from down south!!!

Or maybe because beef has become more expensive since the BSE motivated ban on US beef exports 2 years ago and market pressure for a traditional healthier delicacy.

Although the ban was lifted a short time ago, it has been re-instated according to latest from Reuters.

I think we should dump horses at the French embassy, dogs at the Korean embassy, Haggis' at the Scottish parliament ....

Don`t forget the sheep at the welsh embassy!

I know they don`t have embassies.

beat ya

You cannot stop some people eating whaleburgers unless there is a global ban, not just picking on one country. Traditions, and peoples want and wishes and what they've always done always comes into discussion. Of course Armin Meiwes idea of a sausage roll snack should never appear on any Speisekarte in my book.

The Faroe Islanders have been eating Whaleburgers, Fillet-of.Whale since time immemorial, nowadays washed down with coke probably. They wait until a school (or whatever the collective noun is), of whales appears, then head of to sea then herd EVERY one into shore, then they kill all of them , mommas, poppas, kiddies, the lot using knifes and whatever else the local B & Q has to offer, "I'm a whale get me outta here" , springs to mind, but sadly none are spared, every single one is killed in this fashion. The sea is really red with blood, the sand is just caked in it.

once they are killed , they are then hacked up whatever you wanna call it, and then as far as I know given out to the islanders free of charge it really is part of their diet. So if you wanna stop whaleburgers popping up next to french fries you must sort out places like this, and offer a substitute - free of charge. Not many volounteers have stepped forward yet.

If you decide to surf on this, bear in I mind i saw a documentry, and it is pretty bloody gory stuff, the famous quote "Let me take your bloody picture for the bloody newspaper" is a good caption. I don't know.
that is out there, and don't wanna know.

if this practice has stopped, then this post needs to be deleted

The point of dumping the whale was to demonstrate that there are healthy specimens dying often enough through beaching themselves to meet the demand for research needs and the current exemption to the whaling ban, that allows Japan to hunt whales for 'research', is unecessary and unjustified.

Yes, the stunt was gross but less dramatic stuff rarely gets to the front page.

I'm glad Greenpeace pulled this little "stunt", be it in bad taste to some or not. The issue needs to be brought to people's attention, like a few other issues on this planet. And at least it's got people thinking about it and perhaps even some might change their ways and attitudes (well one can live i hope!). I watched something on BBC World the other day about red tuna farming off Galicia, Spain. Disgusting the way we treat this planet. I have been trying to buy eco-friendly food for a while where possible and look at the origins of products I buy. Of course, it's difficult today to find anything on the market where something or someone hasn't suffered to make it, but if we were all a little more conscious about where our stuff comes from, instead of just looking for cheap prices, then the world will change. Sadly, some nations/people don't see it like that. It's a shame, it upsets me how we put money before everything else, myself included sometimes.
I don't eat whale though and when animals are on the endangered list, then so-called human "tradition" should be put on the backburner. How convenient that some traditions change for the worse (ie Christmas) when it suits the $$$$ sign, and others don't, hence the whaling.

"You cannot stop some people eating whaleburgers unless there is a global ban..."

There IS a global ban! Japan and Norway have chosen to continue whaling. There is a clause which allows "small numbers" to be killed in the interests of scientific research. For Japan, this means killing around 900 whales per year - most of which only end up in restaurants.

Unlike the Faroe islanders, the Japanese never traditionally ate whale meat. It was a habit picked up during food shortages in WWII. There are not such food shortages in Japan now.