"Dolphin Safe"tuna is good for dolphins,but bad for other marine life.

[scrimmage]

Seems the move by food companies to "dolphin safe" tuna has had unintended consequences,and could actually be less environmentally friendly,when considering the impact on all marine species,than the previous way of catching tuna was.

The ecological disaster
that is dolphin safe tuna
February 16th,2009
By whysharksmatter

Most environmental activists (indeed, most people) have heard the phrase “dolphin safe tuna”, but few know the details other than that it is tuna captured in a way that is better for dolphins.

Before we get into the ethical debate itself, here’s some background on the tuna fishery, and on what “Dolphin safe” actually means.
Tuna is one of the world’s most economically important fisheries, directly employing tens of thousands and feeding millions. The main way that tuna is caught is through purse seines in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Basically, after a large group of tuna is located, a miles-across purse seine net is closed around them via a group of small boats associated with a large factory ship. It’s an effective way to catch large amounts of fish for not a lot of money.
This technique is pretty standard- the main variation lies in how the large group of tuna is located. There are basically three ways to do this.

1) Get lucky and happen to stumble across a large group of tuna visible from the surface in the middle of an enormous ocean. Obviously, this isn’t terribly practical.
2) Attract tuna using floating objects.Stay tuned, we’ll come back to #2.
3) Follow dolphins, because dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific are often associated with large schools of tuna. Dolphins are easy to follow because, unlike tuna, they have to come up for air.

For a long time, #3 was the most common way of catching tuna. The problem with this method was that by definition, dolphins are right there- and they get caught in the net as well. Despite the honest effort of many sailors to free dolphins (there is a long maritime tradition of respecting dolphins), by some estimates, around 500,000 dolphins a year were killed as a result of bycatch.

As a result of pressure from environmental activist groups like Greenpeace, it became illegal to fish using method #3, and we now have what is called “dolphin safe tuna”. Technically this means only that the tuna isn’t harvested by searching for dolphins associated with a school of tuna, something that many environmental groups think isn’t a strong enough definition.

Recall that method #1 isn’t feasible. Tuna fishing fleets rapidly switched over to method #2, attracting tuna using floating objects.
It is poorly understood why fish in the open ocean flock in such huge numbers to floating objects, but is a near universal phenomenon. If you put a log in the middle of the ocean, within hours it will be surrounded by fish. It may have something to do with the fact that many open ocean fish can go their entire lives without encountering a hard surface.
The floating objects now used by tuna fishing fleets are quite high tech- they have sonar and video cameras that allow the flagship to detect how many fish are near that object. Once there are enough, the purse seine comes and scoops them all up- and the floating object is redeployed.

The big problem with this method is that floating objects don’t only attract tuna. EVERYTHING is attracted to floating objects, including sea turtles, sharks, seabirds, billfish, and, yes, dolphins!
Let’s compare the bycatch rates of floating object associated tuna and dolphin associated tuna.

“Ten thousand sets of purse seine nets around immature tuna swimming under logs and other debris will cause the deaths of 25 dolphins; 130 million small tunas; 513,870 mahi mahi; 139,580 sharks; 118,660 wahoo; 30,050 rainbow runners; 12,680 other small fish; 6540 billfish; 2980 yellowtail; 200 other large fish; 1020 sea turtles; and 50 triggerfish.”

“Ten thousand sets of purse seine nets around mature yellowfin swimming in association with dolphins, will cause the deaths of 4000 dolphins (0.04 percent of a population that replenishes itself at the rate of two to six percent per year); 70,000 small tunas; 100 mahi mahi; 3 other small fish; 520 billfish; 30 other large fish; and 100 sea turtles. No sharks, no wahoo, no rainbow runners, no yellowtail, and no triggerfish and dramatic reductions in all other species but dolphins.”

In other words… the only species that “dolphin safe” tuna is good for is dolphins! The bycatch rate for EVERY OTHER species is lower when fishing dolphin-associated tuna vs. floating object associated tuna! The reason for this is obvious- floating objects attract everything nearby, while dolphins following tuna doesn’t attract any other species.

If you work out the math on this (and you don’t have to, because the environmental justice foundation did) , you find that 1 dolphin saved costs 382 mahi-mahi, 188 wahoo, 82 yellowtail and other large fish, 27 sharks, and almost 1,200 small fish.
By trying to help dolphins, groups like Greenpeace caused one of the worst marine ecological disasters of all time. Few other fisheries are as bad for groups like sharks and sea turtles as the purse seine fishery, and none are as large in scale.

Here we get into the ethical debate.
Is it worth saving dolphins, who were not and are not endangered, at the expense of sea turtles, sharks, and many other fish species who are endangered?
To make this debate more interesting, I am taking the options of “just stop fishing for tuna” and “come up with another way” off the table- it’s simply not going to happen in reality, anyway.
Should we fish for tuna using dolphin associated schools and save sharks, sea turtles, and dozens of species of fish… or should we fish for tuna using “dolphin safe” floating object associated schools and wipe out the populations of many species of sharks (some populations have shown a 75% decline since “dolphin safe” tuna came onto the scene? In other words, what is more valuable- 1 dolphin, or so much else?
Full article at:
http://southernfriedscience.com/2009...hin-safe-tuna/

[scrimmage]

Green revolutions,green products,green energy,or "Dolphin Safe" tuna are all examples of how it's all in making the consumer targetted believe in what's being sold,even if the benefits promised don't really pan out.

American shoppers misled by greenwash,
Congress told
98% of supposedly environmentally friendly products in US supermarkets make false or confusing claims, campaigners say

Sunday 21 June 2009
By Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
Excerpts from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...s-supermarkets

More than 98% of supposedly natural and environmentally friendly products on US supermarket shelves are making potentially false or misleading claims, Congress has been told. And 22% of products making green claims bear an environmental badge that has no inherent meaning, said Scot Case, of the environmental consulting firm TerraChoice.
The study of nearly 4,000 consumer products found "greenwashing" in nearly every product category – from a lack of verifiable information to outright lies.

One problem is proliferation – both of products claiming to be green and of certification programmes purporting to back up those claims.

There is a constantly expanding pool of products to choose from. About 33% of all new food products launched in 2008 claimed to be "natural", Dara O'Rourke, a professor in environmental policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and founder of the GoodGuide, told the recent hearing. But with around 300 competing environmental certification programmes, shoppers are bombarded by irrelevant or deceptive labels touting the green, natural, eco-friendly, recyclable and non-toxic properties of goods.

It is virtually impossible to sort through the claims, said Urvashi Rangan, of the Consumers Union. "We've got to get rid of the green noise," she said. "Vague and misleading terms should not be allowed."
Labels do not generally say whether products contain recycled content, or how far they travelled from factory to shelf.
Rangan singled out "non-toxic", "natural", and "fragrance free" as misleading claims, because the federal government has never set a precise standard for manufacturers to meet. "Personal care products are the Wild West," she said.

Reading the fine print on labels will not necessarily help either. Companies are not required to disclose the use of some substances believed to be dangerous – such as phthalates, which can cause birth defects and hormone abnormalities and are widely used, from baby bottles to cleaners and cosmetics.
The makers of household cleaners are also not required by law to list every chemical in the bottle so long as it is below a certain level. "Almost none of these companies disclose the ingredients in these products," O'Rourke told Congress. "We don't know what is in them. We don't what the plastic is made of."And as Case eventually discovered, even the most seemingly reliable certifications cannot be trusted.

[scrimmage]

While it's politics,entertainment,and business as usual the ecological world on which we all depend continues to deteriorate,this trumps all other concerns,and if not addressed will lead to our ultimate downfall.

Longhorn cowfish (Lactoria cornuta) are one of many species that live on seagrass meadows (Image: Bruce Nyden)

Meadows of the sea in 'shocking' decline

July 03 2009 by MacGregor Campbell
Excerpts from:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...g-decline.html

Seagrass meadows are disappearing at an accelerating pace, according to a new report, which is the first to look at the problem on a global scale.
Seagrass meadows, along with coral reefs, mangrove forests, and salt-marshes, provide valuable ecosystem services like nutrient cycling. They also protect edible crustaceans,like shrimps and crabs, and juvenile fish such as salmon. In addition, seagrass meadows provide habitats for endangered species like dugongs, manatees, and sea turtles.

While marine ecologists have been measuring localized seagrass loss for decades, they had never before pooled their information to get a global perspective. So a team led by Michelle Waycott of James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, Australia pooled data from 215 regional studies, from 1879 to 2006.
They found that the total area of known seagrass meadow had decreased by 29 per cent over the 127 years. They also found that the rate of loss had accelerated, from less than 1 per cent per year in the 1940s to 7 per cent per year since the 1990s.

This emerald leatherjacket also depends on seagrass meadows for its home (Image: Bruce Nyden)
Image 2 of 3

Sediment dump

"We put tremendous pressure on sea grass beds, but we get a lot of benefits from them," says Susan Williams of the Bodega Marine Laboratory, one of the report's co-authors.

The study points to sediment dumping from coastal development projects, pollution, and agricultural nutrient runoff as major causes of the decline. All three can decrease water quality, starving the plants of the sunlight they need to grow.
Natural disruptions like hurricanes accounted for a small proportion of losses.

According to Williams, the numbers translate to losing a football pitch's worth of seagrass every thirty minutes.

Horned sea stars (Protoreaster nodosus) like sheltered habitats, and often live in seagrass meadows (Image: Bruce Nyden)
Image 3 of 3