We've just delivered three dead dolphins to the UK ministry responsible for their deaths.

We found these three dolphins at sea - all bearing the telltale marks of death by fishing net. Ben Bradshaw is the Nature Conservation and Fisheries Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). That makes him the minister responsible for protecting dolphins and porpoises (as he should under the EU Habitats Directive) as well as the minister in charge of the single biggest threat to dolphins and porpoises - fisheries.

He and his department have tried to side-step the issue of dolphin bycatch for too long, tinkering at the problem by pushing the fishery further offshore, and promising to review the data sooner than planned. But they have already damning evidence that one fishery - pair trawling for bass in the Channel - kills unacceptably high numbers of dolphins every year. There are real concerns that dolphin populations could be seriously affected. Yet they let it continue.

Pair trawling for bass should be banned immediately - and the other fisheries which kill dolphins and porpoises should be identified and tackled too.

At 9am this morning our volunteers laid out the three corpses on Defra's doorstep. Three dolphins, one adult male, one adult female and a juvenile - two of them with their stomachs hacked open by fishermen in a desperate attempt to make the evidence sink without trace.

Meanwhile, our colleagues at sea on the Esperanza are simultaneously doing their best to stop a pair of French sea bass trawlers from fishing, by trying to remove buoys from the nets. I've just spoken to the ship and they’re still with the trawlers and will do what they can to stop them fishing.

Governments in the UK, France and the rest of the EU are failing to tackle the problem of bycatch - even when they have plenty of evidence - so it's up to us to try and do something about it.

That is why we are trying to stop destructive fishing at sea, and have today dumped three dead dolphins on Defra's doorstep. Maybe by having to step over the evidence, they'll stop side-stepping the issue...

Willie, Campaigner

Hi Mark,

I'm not sure where this was reported as being exposed to very young children - but it's not accurate. The Defra office is in the corner of a square in Westminster. At that time of morning on a weekday it's highly unlikely any young children would be there. I certainly never saw any children in the vicinity. The dolphin delivery was covered on 'Newsround', which is a BBC children's news programme - I'm sure they're very conscious of their target audience when choosing footage to use.

None of those involved would do this if we didn't think it was worth exposing those responsible to the reality of what bycatch does to dolphins at sea.

The reality of course is that the tides that bring bycatch carcasses onto our beaches don't give any forethought into who's going to stumble on the bodies of dead dolphins and porpoises - and children are just as likley to encounter them as anyone else.

Willie

My only concern is that the media reported that very young children were exposed to this and that it could affect them greatly. Can anyone in Greenpeace confirm this or was this another case of the media deliberately "altering" the facts to suit them. I would not want my 5-year-old daughter to see such a sight even if I applaud exposing those responsible.

Im sick of this government. What choices to we have in this country? A Labour party who do very very little for the environment, or a conservative party who would be eben worse?

Theyre all corrupt fashist wankers in my book. DEFRA make we want to smoke crack!

Living in a coastal city as I do I see this devastation regularly on the local news and it's truly heartbreaking.

What lengths do we have to go to in order to get Defra to address this vital issue?

Try targeting the companies that purchase the products of the traulers. Imagine the publicity if Sainsburys or Tesco was buying products from these sources.

B

well done, friends! But a very good address for delivering dead bycatch-dolphins is the French Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at Paris. Because at least two-thirds of pelagic trawlers catching right now seabass and dolphins in the Channel are French. The vast majority of those trawlers involved in dolphins-bycatch are registered BA (Bayonne), SN (Saint Nazaire), and LO (Lorient).