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Animals in the Food Industry

Dolphins and Tuna Fishing

By No Comments1 min read

Dolphins and Yellowfin Tuna often swim together, and when Tuna is being hunted, Dolphins often suffer through what is known as Purse-Seine fishing.

With this method, dolphins are surrounded by huge nets (easily 1km long and about 100 metres deep) as it is assumed the Tuna are below the Dolphins – entire schools of Tuna can be caught this way, effectively also trapping and catching Dolphins as collateral damage! In the 90’s, ‘dolphin friendly’ tins of tuna began to surface, and while some companies have been responsible, others found this to be a great marketing tool, even though they didn’t practice so called Dolphin friendly methods.  And while the USA defined what is Dolphin safe, it includes an annual allowable collateral damage quota of Dolphins! So the reality is there is no such thing as Dolphin friendly tuna!

Gill nets are legal and are the biggest killers of Dolphins.

If you care about Dolphins, clearly, refusing to eat sea-life is the answer.