TUNA fishing that’s dolphin-friendly may save the mammals at the expense of the young tuna needed to keep the fisheries sustainable. Protecting the dolphins leaves the tuna more prone to overfishing, a theoretical study has shown.
Fishing boats often locate schools of yellowfin tuna by setting their nets around floating objects or free-swimming schools of fish. This eco-friendly strategy has gradually replaced the setting of nets around schools of dolphins, because too many dolphins got caught in the tuna nets. But dolphin-safe methods tend to catch younger, smaller tuna. The old method, by contrast, picked off the biggest tuna, the…
