The following article was recently published in the UK press by The Scotsman on the issue of dolphin safe:
Labeling Hides Risk To Rare Sea-life From New Fishing Methods
Canned and fresh tuna sold in supermarkets under the “dolphin-friendly†label scheme is misleading consumers that the fish are caught in an environmentally friendly manner, according to campaigners.
Threatened species, including certain critically endangered sharks and turtles, are now far more at risk from changing methods of tuna fishing than dolphins ever were, it is claimed.
As a result, two major environmental organizations have withdrawn their support for the scheme and are calling for a more comprehensive labeling system to allow shoppers to make a properly informed choice.
Methods of catching the fish that led to hundreds of thousands of dolphins being landed as “by-catch†in the late 1980s and early 1990s have changed.
The dolphins used to be caught because fishermen noticed that skipjack and yellowfin tuna had a natural tendency to congregate in massive shoals beneath pods of dolphins. They began to set their nets on the dolphins, which resulted in massive numbers of the marine mammals being killed.
Although the fishermen now avoid dolphins, they use a method known as longlining, where a multi-baited line up to 80 miles long is dragged behind a vessel. This is devastating turtles, sharks, albatross and other seabird species.
Charles Clover, an expert on industrial fishing who spent three years researching his new book, The End of the Line: How Over Fishing is Changing the World and What We Eat, said: “Canned tuna is scary for two reasons: it may contain endangered bigeye [a species of tuna] and involves an awesome but unquantified by-catch. We urgently need to know more about how much by-catch there is and whether it can be avoided ... Until then, there is reason to feel deeply uncomfortable about eating a tuna sandwich. There is no reason to feel any happier that your can is marked dolphin-friendly.â€
Calls to each of the big four supermarkets’ PR departments - Morrison, Asda, Sainsbury and Tesco - revealed they are all keen to extol the dolphin-friendly nature of their tuna, and deny any sustainability problems.
Both the environment groups Greenpeace and WWF have withdrawn their support for dolphin-friendly labeling of tuna as a result of the industry’s “unsustainable, wasteful and irresponsible†methods.
Richard Dixon, the head of research for WWF Scotland, said: "The picture is much more complex than can be represented by a simple ‘dolphin-friendly’ label, and supermarkets need to get much more up to date with this. We need to know how they were caught, what species they are and what other species were unintentionally caught with them at the same time. Many species of tuna are also increasingly rare, and this raises issues of sustainability.
â€We have been doing some work with the industry on turtle by-catch. Trials have shown that all they would have to do is simply change the shape of the long-line hooks to prevent turtle by-catch, which would have no influence on the number of tuna caught. However, with insufficient regulation of the industry, this shows no sign of being introduced.â€
Source: The Scotsman - Written by James Reynolds-Environment Correspondent