U.S. Dept of Commerce “Dolphin-Safe†Label Is A Death Certificate ff
8 April 2005
United States According to its own press release the Earth Island Institute wishes to warn consumers about the label sponsored by the Bush Administration’s U.S. Department of Commerce that falsely purports to protect dolphins. Do not buy tuna with the commerce department dolphin safe logo.
â€You would have to look long and hard to find a more extreme example of doublespeak,†charged David Phillips, Director of Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project. “Calling a fishing method ‘dolphin safe’ that has killed more dolphins than any other cause in history is a complete sham.â€
â€Consumers should avoid canned tuna with the Commerce Dept. label that tuna was caught by chasing, injuring, and netting of dolphins,†Phillips added.
The Commerce Dept. has released an official “dolphin safe†mark for tuna labels which threatens the current dolphin-safe standards for tuna and promises to mislead consumers. Earth Island Institute and nine other environmental and animal welfare organizations are suing the Commerce Dept. over the deceptive Dolphin Safe standards.
Leading tuna producers and retailers, including the largest tuna companies in the world (StarKist, Bumble Bee, and Chicken of the Sea), have pledged to follow a true dolphin-safe standard in which no dolphins are encircled in the purse seine nets during the entire tuna fishing trip.
But the Bush Commerce Dept., bowing to trade pressure from Mexican tuna millionaires and in order to avoid sanctions from the World Trade Organization (WTO), attempted to weaken the standards for the “dolphin safe†mark on the last day of 2001. Under the Commerce Dept’s proposed regulations, dolphins could be chased, harassed, netted, and even injured and killed while catching tuna, as long as an on-board observer does not see dolphins killed or “seriously injured†while capturing the tuna. Furthermore, dolphin-deadly tuna and this phony “dolphin safe†tuna could be mixed aboard the vessel, encouraging cheating and rendering “dolphin safe†meaningless. Consumers will not be able to tell if the tuna they are buying is truly “dolphin safe,†caught without netting and harming dolphins, or not. The lucrative U.S. tuna market would act as an incentive for the chasing and killing of tens of thousands of dolphins.
However, in October 2004, federal Judge Thelton Henderson ruled against the Commerce Dept. in the lawsuit “Earth Island Institute v Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans.†The case is being appealed by the Bush Administration in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
More than 7 million dolphins have been killed by this fishing technique of targeting and netting dolphins to catch the tuna that swim beneath. The government's own scientists have concluded that despite the reduced reported dolphin mortality by Mexican, Venezuelan, and Colombian tunaboats, dolphin populations are not recovering from their seriously depleted status.
Consumers can ensure the protection of dolphins by looking for tuna sold by the companies that have pledged to buy only truly dolphin safe tuna, i.e. tuna caught without chasing and netting of dolphins. These companies subscribe to independent monitoring of their activities to ensure that their tuna is caught without any harm or harassment to dolphins.
