Giving the Japanese what they want

In Germany, Greenpeace have staged the best anti-whaling protest yet: They gave the Japanese exactly what they wanted, by leaving a dead fin whale outside the Japanese embassy. In Berlin. Which is about 150km inland. The logistical effort to get it there must have been tremendous...

The whale was supposed to demonstrate that so-called "scientific" whaling is unnecessary for data collection, as whale cadavers are regularly available (as the repeated strandings in Golden Bay this summer demonstrate). Tissue samples, DNA, and age data can all be collected from dead whales without too much effort, and contribute just as much to science as those collected with a harpoon. But then, science and autopsies don't really seem to be the point of the Japanese "scientific" whaling program. Instead, its purpose seems to be primarily collecting "tissue samples" for sale in Japanese supermarkets and restaurants...