Greenpeace dumps dead dolphins in protest

Activists from the environmental group Greenpeace dumped the bodies of two dead dolphins on the steps of the French Embassy in London

Activists from the environmental group Greenpeace dumped the bodies of two dead dolphins on the steps of the French Embassy in London on Thursday to protest French fishing practices.

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The group says French fisherman kill up to 2,000 dolphins every year by pair-trawling _ dragging nets strung between two boats.

Greenpeace spokesman Oliver Knowles said the dead dolphins used in Thursday's protest were recovered in the English Channel, and 16 French pair-trawling fishing boats were operating within a 12-mile (19-kilometer) radius of where the bodies were discovered.

"The French pair trawling fleet is the largest in Europe and these dead dolphins are only the tip of the iceberg," Knowles said. "Thousands of these animals are killed in the Channel every year and French pair-trawlers bear the brunt of responsibility for these unnecessary deaths."

A spokesman for the French Embassy said the French government is trying to find a solution to the problem.

"The demonstration by Greenpeace does touch on a problem which we have not been ignoring," he said.

"We are trying to find a solution, short of banning fishing throughout, which would not put cetaceans at risk and at the same time not jeopardize the livelihoods of fishermen," the spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for Britain's Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs said that the European Commission had turned down its proposal last year to ban pair trawling for bass within 12 miles of the southwest coast of Britain, where French activity is concentrated.

Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency said Thursday that lives of protesters and fishermen were being endangered in the standoff between Greenpeace and fishermen off the southwest coast. The environmental group has been confronting British and French trawlers with rigid inflatables and divers, and has stopped them fishing by floating buoys into their giant nets.

Coast guards said "the lives of both protesters and fishermen have been endangered, collision regulations have been given low priority, international distress signals have been misused, and metallic buoys with hazardous chains and grapnel hooks have been dumped at sea."

The agency said it had sent letters of warning to all the vessels involved.