Informant38

The report, an accumulation of government research conducted from 1997 to 2002, shows that dolphin populations in the Pacific remain depleted, with eastern spinner dolphins at 35 percent of their historic levels, and northeastern offshore spotted dolphins at just 20 percent of their former numbers.

"For the first time, NMFS has officially acknowledged the massive and previously uncounted killing of baby dolphins that are separated from their mothers during chase and capture by tuna vessels using mile long nets," said David Phillips, director of Earth Island Institute's international marine mammal project. "This is a shocking and tragic revelation."
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"This report on NMFS scientists' dolphin research clearly shows that the technique favored by the Mexican tuna fleet and other nations to catch tuna causes significant harm to dolphins," Phillips continued. "The Secretary of Commerce would have to defy science, common sense, and the law in order to weaken the U.S. federal standards for the use of the 'Dolphin Safe' tuna label in light of the report."

If the Commerce Department adopts the previously proposed changes to the 1990 "dolphin safe" standards, the methods used by fleets from Mexico and Central America would be included under the U.S. definition of tuna fishing techniques that do not harm dolphins. The United States now has highest standards in the world for protecting dolphins who were dying by the hundreds of thousands in tuna nets before boycotts and trade embargoes forced changes in the fishery in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Mexican government has been lobbying for changes that would give the Mexican tuna industry access to the lucrative American market. In the mid-1990s, Mexico threatened action against the United States on the grounds that the U.S. dolphin-protection laws violate the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization.