Dolphin-Safe Labels, the Ocean’s Biggest Lie?
The United States “Dolphin-safe” tuna labeling encourages fishing methods that are most likely endangering entire marine ecosystems. The World Trade Organization conducted a full review of all of the empirical and scientific evidence available in 2012. That study concluded that the “dolphin-safe” tuna standards established by the United States Congress in 1990 were influential in the short term by raising awareness; they are now outdated and effectively deceptive to U.S. consumers. The reality is that the “dolphin-safe” policy enacted by the U.S. only refers to a region known as the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP).
So the dolphin-safe label certifies that no harm occurred to dolphins only if the tuna were caught within the ETP fishery. According to the WHO report, when thousands of dolphins are killed outside of the ETP by commercial fishing fleets searching for tuna, the canned tuna can still bear the “dolphin-safe” label under the current standards. Unfortunately, it has been proven that more than 98% of the tuna sold in the U.S. market is sourced from outside this area. That means that untracked and unmonitored fisheries that kill thousands of dolphins every year are sold in the U.S. under the dolphin-safe label.
Most marine scientists agree that the most significant threat to today’s oceans is commercial fishing. Incidental bycatch is the term used to cover up a multitude of sins in the fishing industry. This is the term used to describe any marine life that is unintentionally killed during commercial fishing operations. While the word seems benign enough, what it is accounting for is the thousands of whales, dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, sea birds, and other sea life casualties of massive commercial fishing operations worldwide.
Incidental bycatch occurs when other marine species are unintentionally hooked or entangled in commercial fishing boats’ nets. Some of the fishing methods proven to cause the most damage include longlines, purse seine nets, fish aggregating devices, and gillnets. These fishing techniques are designed to trap the most amount of marine life with no discrimination to species. Gillnets, made of plastic mesh, snag any fish by their gills as they try to swim through it. Longlines are simply miles and miles of fishing rope with thousands of baited hooks. These techniques are indiscriminate on what kind of marine life they capture, but they are sadly very effective.
Currently, the system for obtaining the dolphin-safe label is not transparent, tracked, or verified. According to the U.S. Consumers Union, Earth Island is an independent environmental organization responsible for verifying that dolphin-safe tuna standards are being met. However, experts agree that U.S. dolphin-safe labels provide no guarantee that dolphins were not harmed during the commercial fishing process. The verification processes they employ are neither independent nor universal.
Earth Island Institute admits that it receives donations from the companies it verifies, making their determinations questionable at best. The company has never had an external scientific data audit to prove whether its labeling program has any level of accuracy. The truth is that under current U.S. labeling standards, bycatch, including that of dolphins, sharks, whales, and sea turtles, does occur in high frequency, and the actual number of sea creatures lost is unknown in most cases.
According to an article published in National Geographic, Zak Smith, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, was a contributing author to a 2014 report titled Net Loss: The Killing of Marine Mammals in Foreign Fisheries. Among other alarming facts, the report cites estimated that more than 650,000 marine creatures were caught or seriously injured in fisheries every year, according to their data. Almost half of that number were cetaceans, meaning dolphins, whales, and porpoises. And the alarming fact is that number is rising every year.
Are Dolphin-Safe Labels True?
Consumers are becoming more aware of these issues to the point where class-action lawsuits are pending against Starkist, Bumble Bee, and Chicken of the Sea. The lawsuits claim that these three tuna brands use false advertising by describing their tuna products as “dolphin-safe.”
Together these three companies control 70 to 80 percent of the domestic canned tuna market. Since their providers use fishing techniques known to harm or kill dolphins, they violate state and federal laws. There are safer if more expensive methods like the pole-and-line method used by some of their competitors. However, the suits claim, the U.S.’s three biggest canned tuna brands continue to use outdated, environmentally destructive methods for no other reason than profits.
Are Dolphin-Safe Labels True?
If saving the oceans is on your to-do list, the best thing you can do is stop eating fish and other seafood because the “dolphin-safe” label has been proven to mean relatively nothing.
Read more – Farmers Market Lies Exposed: Vendors Lying About Where Their Produce
For more information please visit Save the Dolphin-Safe Campaign website.
