Protecting Dolphins
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The single threat to the
world's dolphin population ---- and it is a serious one ---- comes from tuna fishing.
Because schools of the yellowfin tuna often swim underneath schools of dolphins, the
fishing nets are set around
both. When the nets are pulled in, the dolphins are captured along with the tuna, and they
drown. Hundreds of
thousands of dolphins have been killed this way. But the Marine Mammal Protection Act,
passed by the U.S.
Congress in 1972, restricts the number of dolphins that U.S. fishing fleets can kill
yearly. New nets have been
designed with a type of "gateway" at the top that permits the dolphins to escape
while the tuna remain inside. If
tuna fleets of all nations would use these new nets, nearly all the dolphins now
accidentally netted and killed along
with tuna could be saved.
