One of the best-known and most controversial challenges for dolphin conservation has been that of the tuna-dolphin issue, where purse seine tuna fishermen deliberately circle dolphins with nets to catch the tuna that swims underneath them.
From the late 1950s until the 1990s, some six million dolphins died in tuna purse seine nets in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
In response, global campaigns were launched to stop this terrible tragedy. Eventually dolphin safe or dolphin friendly labels were created to help the public identify which fishing operations were not continuing to cause such deaths.
Although, the deaths have been reduced, they have not stopped and consumers must become critical buyers to make sure that pressure remains to reduce the dolphin deaths. The Eastern Pacific Ocean tuna fishery is the only tuna fishery in the world today where observers go out on every vessel. Tuna caught in any other part of the world do not have that same safeguard, yet it may be given an automatic dolphin safe label.
It is critical that the public make its voice heard, both at the industry and at governmental levels. A dolphin safe label will only be as good as what the public demands it to be.