Campaign for Eco-Safe Tuna Releases Results of Consumer Poll

by Campaign for Eco-Safe Tuna
January 30, 2014

Ever wondered what that cutesie "dolphin-safe" label on your can of tuna really means? We put the question to YOU last month and the results were striking.

More than 80% of you responded that the label means you can be certain no dolphins were harmed or intentionally harmed. We wish that was true. Unfortunately, "dolphin-safe" labels from Earth Island Institute are as misleading as they are ubiquitous.

To the approximately 13% who responded, "I don't know," the Campaign for Eco-Safe Tuna would like to applaud your earnest skepticism. And we have an answer for you: it doesn't mean much.

Earth Island's "dolphin-safe" label only applies to fishing fleets using a single method of tuna capture in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, a small area of the Pacific Ocean where dolphin and tuna are known to swim together. It's not the worst fishing method, and that's not the place where most of the environmental damage is being done today, nor is it the area where dolphins are being killed and injured. The label was originally created to protect dolphins and, by extension, the ecosystems in which they live. Today it does neither. The label was meant to empower consumers to make informed decisions about their purchasing choices. But a deceptive label has the opposite effect.

That makes Earth Island's entire scheme that much worse. The label does not protect dolphins. And the label certainly doesn't help protect the marine ecosystems of our world's oceans. The label is proven false. Consumers are being deceived en masse while a greenwashed fundraising machine of the Earth Island Institute takes advantage of our good intentions.

As the results of our poll show, the deception is widespread: more than 93% of you either do not know or assume the label means what it says. Every day it gets slapped on factory lines of mass-produced tuna. Walk into any grocery store in the U.S. and you'll probably find it. Yet, fewer than 1 in 10 actually know the ecological devastation it conceals. News flash, kids: consumer fraud from Earth Island's dolphin-safe label is everywhere. Get the word out to your friends and family: "dolphin-safe" really means dolphin deadly.