It all started some 30 years ago when scientists began noticing the decline of dolphin populations in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (that part of the Pacific Ocean west of Mexico and southwest of the US). Later studies confirmed that dolphins were being captured in nets by tuna purse-seine fishers in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Inspite of this technical confirmation, the US Congress had delayed enacting legislation that would directly protect dolphin populations.

It took many years until the early 1990s when the US congress finally enacted laws to protect dolphins. However, the law was weakly implemented and US tuna companies were left to virtually regulate themselves, which did not amount to much.

At this point, US environmentalists who had lobbied for years initiated a boycott of all canned tuna products, urging consumers not to buy tuna until major tuna companies and their suppliers agreed to adopt standards which would ensure their products are truly dolphin-safe (meaning that in their operations no dolphins would be caught or harmed in any manner).

As tuna sales dropped due to the tuna boycott, major tuna canning companies led by Starkist, one of the biggest tuna retailers in the US, committed to processing and selling tuna procured through dolphin-safe fishing methods.

This started what would later on be known as the ‘Dolphin-Safe Monitoring Program’ where environmentalists monitor the tuna canning process from the supply side (fishing) to the processing side (canning) and up to the marketing end (distribution and retailing).

By clearly watching this entire process, environmentalists are able to verify that tuna is harvested using dolphin-safe techniques and are able to trace the source of the tuna from the fishing companies to the consumers.

More than a decade of implementing the program worldwide resulted in saving hundreds of thousands of dolphins that would have died in tuna fishing nets unnecessarily.
 

‘Dolphin’ is the common name of air-breathing sea mammals that swim the open oceans. The basic morphological characteristic of dolphins is the presence of teeth, distinct dorsal fins, and snouts or “beaks.”

Dolphins are not fish. Dolphins breathe air (through the blowhole on top of their heads), give birth to live young and suckle their offspring.

Much like humans, dolphins live in closely-knit communities or societies called ‘pods’ where each individual has a role to play in keeping the society together.

Current scientific literature shows that dolphins are among the most intelligent animals on the planet. Experts who have studied dolphin behavior agree that apart from intelligence, dolphins also have the capacity to have emotions similar to humans.

Experts agree that these animals can feel anger, anxiety, fear, and even compassion.

This strange inter-species compassion is often manifested in well documented cases of dolphins rescuing humans from shipwrecks and shark attacks.

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