Grist readers deserve better than the poorly informed coverage of the tuna/dolphin issue in a recent article by Rick Gaffney, which makes false and misleading claims about “dolphin safe” tuna fishing methods.
A dolphin in the deep.
Earth Island Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States, and dozens of other organizations have worked on the tuna/dolphin issue for more than a decade, and our successful efforts to reduce dolphin deaths in the Eastern Tropical Pacific tuna fishery by 97 percent is considered one of the signature accomplishments of the modern environmental movement. We all celebrated on Earth Day 1990 with the historic announcement by StarKist — the largest tuna company in the world — that it would no longer buy tuna caught by methods that harm dolphins. Today, 97.1 percent of the world’s tuna is caught without chasing and netting dolphins at all. There are ample supplies of tuna without resorting to this cruel and destructive fishing practice.
One cannot understand the battle to protect the “dolphin safe” tuna label without realizing that the Wor... Read more
