It turns out that Dolphin Safe Tuna is bad for sharks. And visa versa. More or less....
Let's as BlogFish about it...
Who's right depends on what you value more, dolphins or broader ocean ecosystem health. At least that's the way I see it. We could protect dolphins totally during tuna fishing only if we're willing to allow other animals like fish and sea turtles to suffer harm and become depleted (or further depleted).
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Press release from Ocean Conservancy.....
San Francisco, CA -- Responding to concerns by scientists and conservation groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) affirmed protections for critically endangered leatherback sea turtles in California waters. NMFS denied a proposed exempted…
On Monday night I went to the cinema and watched the new environmental movie The End of the Line, directed by Rupert Murray. Featuring habitats, scientists and case studies worldwide, it shows how our rampant and poorly controlled (or uncontrolled) exploitation of the global oceans is depleting (…
CNN.com reports this morning on "Fried dolphin on menu in japanese town". I do not want to bear on the ethical issues of harvesting dolphins. Every culture has their animals they eat that other cultures are disgusted by, as stated in the article:
"Locals know they offend Western sensibilities by…
Photo Credit: H. Jusseit
Hans Jusseit, a tuna fisherman, has designed a shield to protect the bait on fish hooks (image above). These are not just any fish hooks. These hooks are for catching large fish, like tuna, using longlines like the one shown in the picture below.
Image: OPRT-Organization…
You know, this brings up an interesting question in general:
As we seek to conserve more and more species, at some point we will have to make choices. Two species will compete for resources, or one species will be prey to another - how do we make decisions about which species are more worthy of conservation?
For example, just off the top of my head, we strive hard to conserve all kinds of marine mammals. But orcas, now, due to the loss of other prey species, have been known to feed on sea otters, decimating their populations. By protecting orcas, we might directly be killing sea otters, which has a whole host of environmental implications. The obvious answer would be to bring back the orcas' other food species, but this is proving difficult. In the meantime, are we going to be able to conserve both species?
At some point we will have no choice but to limit human population. I think it would be best to do that sooner rather than later.
Have you ever seen dolphins drowning in nets? Condoning cruelty is not a good solution to the ecological problem.
I haven't particularly followed the dolphin killing controversy. Why don't the dolphins just jump over the float line and escape? I saw a program on TV about catching tuna for farming. I didn't see much if anything about dolphins, as the program concentrated on divers herding sharks out through holes in the net, then patching the holes.