Tuna/Dolphin Update

By Kate O'Connell

The tuna/dolphin issue continues to be one of the more controversial environmental challenges. Recently, two US members of Congress asked the Department of Commerce to place an "indefinite" ban on allowing Mexican tuna to be labelled as dolphin-safe. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. George Miller (both Democrats from California) responded to reports that potential bribery had occurred, with Mexican tuan boat observers being offered as much as $10,000 to falsify dolphin safe certificates. Boxer said, "It is extraordinary that the Commerce Department did nothing following these bribery charges and continued to issue the 'dolphin-safe' label as though nothing was wrong."

Several conservation organizations (among them EII and HSUS) have engaged in a series of court cases against the Bush Administration for its changing of the definition of "dolphin safe" to allow for nets to be set on dolphins. These groups revealed that a memo showed that the Administration's initial finding had been the opposite, and would have precluded the ability for tuna caught by purse-seine encirclement to receive a dolphin safe label.

Under court order, the Bush Administration was forced to release a memo that had been withheld as evidence. The memo, written in late December 2002 by William Hogarth, the Commerce Department's Fisheries Administrator, stated that: "I have concluded that the chase and intentional deployment on or encirclement of dolphins with purse seine nets is having a significant adverse impact on depleted dolphins stocks in the ETP (Eastern Tropical Pacific). Therefore, the definition of dolphin-safe means that no dolphins may be chased or encircled in the entire trip and no dolphins may be seriously injured or killed in the set in which the tuna was harvested."

However, eleven days later, on December 31st, Hogarth issued the Commerce Department's "finding" that dolphins were NOT harmed and allowing ETP tuna nations to label their tuna, caught by netting, chasing and killing dolphins, "Dolphin Safe" as long as a government observer claims no dolphins were observed dead or seriously injured in the nets. The debate, ongoing for a decade, continues.

As Whales Alive! goes to press, the InterAmerican Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC - home to the International Dolphin Conservation Program/IDCP) is meeting in Lima, Peru. On the agenda is a discussion of the IDCP, and a review of possible infractions by tuna vessels fishing for tuna in association with dolphins. According to recent IATTC statistics, the estimate of total dolphin mortality for the ETP fleet in 2003 was 1,501, a slight decline from the 2002 level of 1,514. The IDCP's Review Panel meets regularly not only to review infractions of the dolphin agreement but also to address possible new ways to bring down mortalities. For more information, you can access the IDCP documents at http://www.iattc.org/.