Setback For Dolphin-Safe Tuna

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans waited until the last day of 2002 to announce, without explanation, that the hard-won "Dolphin Safe" label on cans of tuna sold in the United States would no longer mean that no tuna were caught by finding and encircling dolphins with nets. Now it means only that an on-board observer reported no dolphins killed outright or "seriously injured."

A coalition of nine organizations immediately filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Federal Court, seeking a restraining order against the administration's decision. Two federal courts earlier had ruled against similar decisions, made in 1999 by former Commerce Secretary William Daley.

The Ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, U.S. Representative Nick J. Rahall, charged that the Bush Administration's decision makes a mockery of the "dolphin-safe" label, undermines dolphin conservation, clouds consumer choice in the lucrative U.S. tuna market, and helps foreign companies at the expense of U.S.-based tuna manufacturers, which avoid purchasing tuna caught by encirclement. His committee has jurisdiction over fisheries and ocean conservation issues.

A Commerce Department report had earlier documented that chasing and netting dolphins was harming dolphin populations by direct killing, separating mothers from babies, and possibly causing severe stress that might kill even the released dolphins. Government biologists had determined that depleted Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) dolphin populations are not recovering, almost certainly due to the tuna fishing industry's setting their nets on dolphins. There is controversy over the reliability of on-board observers, suggesting false dolphin mortality numbers. Implying concern for the reliability problem, the government "will seek better enforcement of the international dolphin conservation program." Vessels without observers that set nets illegally are rarely caught, as occurred last spring in the Galapagos Islands.

The association between dolphins and tuna is only exploited in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Since 1990 and the advent of the "Dolphin Safe" tuna program, dolphin deaths have decreased by 98 percent in the ETP. The campaign to monitor and enforce "Dolphin Safe" tuna standards has been supported by a large coalition of organizations. It has been effective: U.S. tuna fishermen no longer set nets on dolphins, and major tuna processors StarKist, Bumble Bee, and Chicken of the Sea had pledged they would not buy tuna caught by chasing and netting dolphins. With the exception of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador, almost all tuna fishers and canners have acceded to the standards, even if they were not involved with the ETP fishery. These agreements may change as a result of the new policy.

Well-funded lobbyists, particularly for Mexico, have fought the "Dolphin Safe" standard in Washington. Perhaps associated, some Mexican, Venezuelan, and Colombian tuna companies are suspected of being involved in smuggling cocaine and other illegal drugs, using the large tuna clippers to carry tons of drugs from the Colombian cartels into Mexican waters. Several large tuna purse seiners have been caught smuggling cocaine by the U.S. Coast Guard. Cocaine is called "atun blanco" or "white tuna" in Venezuela. Mexico had signaled that if it did not get wider access to U.S. markets through an easing of the dolphin-safe label requirements, it might pull out of the international dolphin protection program altogether. After intense lobbying, Mexico was certified by the Department of Commerce to import tuna.