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29 Info. Rep.: Animal Welfare Inst. 1 (1980-1981)

handle is hein.animal/awiqu0029 and id is 1 raw text is: INFORMATION REPORT ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE P.O. Box 3650, Washington, D.C. 20007 January-February-March 1980 Vol. 29, No. 1 WILL OUR COUNTRY ACCEPT ITS DOLPHIN PROTECTION RESPONSIBILITIES? The hunting of Dolphins is Immoral and that man can no more draw nigh the gods as a welcome sacrificer nor touch their altars with clean hands but pollutes those who share the same roof with him, whoso willingly devises destruction for Dolphins. For equally with human slaughter, the gods abhor the deathly doom of the monarchs of the deep ... Opplan If we accept the wisdom of the Ancients as expressed by Op- plan, immorality is rife in the United States and Japan. The government of Nagasaki even provled a Dolphin Processor to li Island to chop up the dolphins deliberately captured and slaughtered on their migratory path in late Febru- ary and early March. The U.S. government has scheduled hearings before an ad- ministrative law judge to examine the findings of the scientific workshop which determined that offshore spotted dolphins, the species most often set upon by tuna purse seine fishermen, are depleted. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, depleted species may not be taken. The tuna industry is preparing to argue the case strongly. The only way a final solution can be reached is to use a dif- ferent method for locating and setting the seines on schools of tuna. The best hope lies with fish aggregating devices. These have been successfully used in Hawaiian waters and are now the subject of a proposal for a statewide fish aggregation system, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. They have already brought about a substantial reduction in scouting time and pursuit of tuna schools because the fish tend to stay round the anchored rafts from which forty foot pieces of net hang free in the water. It is a remarkable fact that fish and other marine organisms are attracted to such foreign objects. It has been reported that even an old rain coat floating on the sur- face has attracted fish; oil drums have been set out successfully to aggregate them and floating trunks of dead palm trees are well known to fishermen who have used them for log fishing for many years. A proposal to research both aggregating devices and methods of locating schools of tuna fish not associated with dolphins, has been prepared by Frank Awbrey and William Evans, scientists from the University of San Diego and Hubbs- Sea World respectively. This carefully prepared work should be implemented immediately by industry and government to elim- inate the pursuit of dolphin herds and setting of the giant purse seines around them. The purse seine fishery is now known to all the dolphin herds in the Eastern tropical Pacific, and as soon as they perceive a seiner, the whole dolphin school starts to run, swimming and leaping at top speed. The speedboats deployed by the big $5- million purse seiners must now be equipped with extra fuel tanks for their ruthless pursuit of the dolphins. The chases which used to last one to two hours now are extended to three or four hours before the exhausted dolphins are able to run no more, and they are encircled in the seines. Such prolonged chases cannot be sustained by the old, the weak, or diseased, the very young or the pregnant dolphins. Death from exhaus- tion is likely to follow such persistent pursuit, thus, causing more damage to populations that are either depleted or likely to become so. The cruelty of the chase has enormously intensified as the dolphins have learned that they must do their very best to avoid tuna seiners. At the same time, the cost of the chase in fuel and time spent continues to rise. Thus, selfish and altruistic motives combine to demand the discovery of a tuna fishing method which does not depend on dolphins. Compliance with federal law, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, likewise calls for a goal approaching zero mortality and serious injury rate. The Act's definition of taking includes harassment of mar- ing mammals. The harassment meted out by the multimillion (Continued on page 2) a 0 Dolphin processor at Iki Island, Japan. Body of dolphin Is being dropped into the shredder for use as fertilizer. Fishermen call the migratory dolphins gangsters of the sea. Dead dolphins in foreground. THE KELLERT REPORT The extent to which the general public is willing to put wild animals ahead of purely economic considerations has susprised many cynics when they read phase I of a Yale School of For- estry and Environmental Studies survey: Public Attitudes Toward Critical Wildlife and Natural Habitat Issues. The study, funded by the United States Fish and Wildliffe Service, was con- ducted in a highly professional and extremely thorough manner showing close correlation with the U.S. census with regard to age, sex, race, and occupation. The 138-page study covers a broad area. Some of the ques- tions of particular interest to readers of the Information Report include views on endangered species, predator control, use of the steel jaw leghold trap, and poisons. When asked which of a list of endangered species they would be willing to protect even if it resulted in higher costs for an energy development project, 89% favored protection for the bald eagle, 73% for the mountain lion, 71% for the Agassiz trout, 70% for the American crocodile and 64% for the Silver- spot butterfly. When asked whether they would approve poisoning of coy- otes because it is the least expensive solution even though other animals besides coyotes may be killed, 92% of the general public disapproved. However, when sheep producers were asked the same question 75% approved. The general public and the sheepmen were also diametrically opposed though not to quite such an extreme degree, on the question as to whether cattle and sheep grazing should be lim- ited on publicly owned lands if it destroys plants needed by wildlife even though this may result in higher meat costs. Sixty percent of the general public agreed, and 59% of the sheep- men disagreed, The public expressed its willingness to pay higher prices for tuna fish If this resulted in fishermen killing fewer porpoises in their nets. Sixty-nine percent were prepared to make a financial sacrifice to protect dolphins. With regard to the steel jaw leghold trap the study shows 78% of the general public oppose use of the steel jaw wighold trap to capture wild animals.

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