I've seen these "Dolphin Safe" labels on tuna cans. I thought this meant they don't hurt dolphins, but I see them on ALL the cans. What's up with this?

The main problem here arises because each company has its own definition of what "dolphin-safe" means. There also isn't any regulating body to determine which products should be allowed to claim to be Dolphin Safe. As a result, each company creates its own personal dolphin safe symbol to put on their cans. For example:

Starkist Dolphin Safe symbol

BumbleBee Tuna

Chicken Of The Sea

* First, it is important to recognize that the killing of dolphins is primarily a problem with the yellowfin tuna purse-seine fishery in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean near Central America and South America. Several companies claim to be Dolphin safe because they only import tuna they believe to have been caught in the Western Pacific Ocean.

For example, Gold Seal neither employs tuna fishermen nor purchases tuna on a wholesale basis for canning. Gold Seal purchases the finished product directly from its suppliers, and trusts its suppliers to ensure that the canned tuna imported for the Gold Seal label is all dolphin-safe.

Tremendous progress has been made toward the protection of dolphins, as recently described in an article entitled The Dolphin-Safe Tuna Anniversary by Brenda Killian. However, the hard-fought efforts to protect the dolphins recently have seen new threats to dolphins such as Bill HR2179 introduced on August 4th, 1995, into the U.S. Congress to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Additional details about Bill HR2179, the recent defeat of Bill HR2823 in the U.S. Senate, and other information are available from the Earth Island Institute.

Another recent development was the signing of The Declaration Of Panama, a twelve-nation, five-environmental-group accord which has renewed the debate on the "dolphin-safe" issue. The Earth Island Institute, which does not support The Declaration Of Panama, fears renewed danger to dolphins resulting from the redefinition of the term "dolphin-safe". Under the terms of the accord, tuna caught by chasing, encircling and capturing dolphins could be labelled as "dolphin-safe" so long as no "observed" dolphin fatalities are witnessed by on-board monitors. This revised definition is not consistent with the concept of "dolphin-safe". The protection of the dolphins must be the paramount principle in both the debate and the definition of "dolphin-safe".

Most recently (July 1997) US policy on dolphin protection was weakened to allow dolphin UNSAFE tuna back onto the US market. The new legislation (Bill H.R. 408) has been passed despite considerable opposition from Earth Island Institute and many other environmental groups such as Planet Ark and the Dolphin Society based in Australia.

* Partial paraphrasation of a statement made on the Gold Seal website.

With everyone making their own decisions on what is and isn't dolphin safe, thre's no real way to know if dolphins are being hurt or even how many. Some companys are making a valid effort to protect the dolphins and they should be highly commended fo their efforts. The down side of it is that there is a marketing benefit to claiming to be dolphin safe. With this in mind, other companys which AREN'T dolphin safe still claim that they are in order to win favour from the consumer. What is needed is a regulating body which would independantly investigate each company to determine if their practices are indeed dolphin friendly. A unified "dolphin safe symbol" is also needed so the consumer will know what to look for, allowing them to make an educated choice of which brands of tuna they wish to purchase.

Copyright 1999-2003 - By Norma Ranieri