What Does Dolphin-Safe Mean?

Dolphin safe label – In the year 1990, Earth Island’s International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) applied the Dolphin safe label for canned tuna which is now followed by more than 800 companies in 76 countries around the world.

 

What Does Dolphin Safe Mean?

 

Its definition was first established in 1990. It means that while catching tuna there were no dolphins encircled or hurt with the tuna net during the entire trip of the tuna vessel. It is mainly focused on the relationship of tuna and the dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

Large number of tuna fishes swims under the herds of dolphins for a reason which is really unknown to the scientists. While grouping the tuna fishes, they use dolphins to locate the tuna by encircling the dolphins with the tuna in a large tuna net called purse seine.

 

In the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands of dolphins were killed by the fishery. Public concern over the impact to dolphin populations in this area led to the development of the dolphin-safe label as a way for consumers to ensure that no dolphins were harmed to make their canned tuna.

 

Launch of the Dolphin Safe Label

 

The launch of the dolphin safe label was in 1980, it was to encourage the Americans to boycott canned tuna. And in response to the boycott, the three major canned tuna companies – Starkist, Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee, pledged to only purchase tuna caught without chasing and encircling dolphins in purse seine nets (Tuna net).

 

 

To make this public and to create awareness to the public, they placed a blue label on the tuna can. This guarantees that no dolphins were killed in the fishing process while encircling the tuna, It deliberately says, dolphins were not chased and encircled to capture the tuna.

 

 

After the tuna companies created the dolphin safe label, the U.S. government adopted the labeling procedures into law with the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act of 1987.