The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), in the past, has issued permits to the billion-dollar tuna industry to kill six to eight million dolphins in order to facilitate this profitable industry. The record will show that NMFS has approved 99.4 % of all permit requests to capture, display and export dolphins. In addition, NMFS has given the US navy the permit to practically do whatever they want with our oceans' marine life.
As far as the navy's marine mammal program is concerned, the US navy can use their marine mammals however they please, and no one will ever know what horrors they endure. The only evidence we have is the Marine Mammal Inventory Report (MMIR.) Here, some of the causes of death among the navy dolphins are listed as 'drowning,' “jaw fracture,' 'capture shock,' and 'dead during testing.'
What does NMFS do with this information? Nothing. In fact, according to the Orlando Sentinel, the data compiled in the MMIR has never been analyzed by NMFS. They simply don't care.
But just try to get this agency to issue a permit to release captive dolphins back into the wild, and all of a sudden they are greatly concerned about these few animals. They are not concerned about the millions that they have issued permits to kill, capture, export and exploit. Fact is, NMFS is a regulatory agency, not a protection agency. One could say that NMFS is the errand boy for the giant corporations. Their job is not about animal protection at all. It never has been.
NMFS is a branch of the US Department of Commerce, and their real job is to facilitate commerce and the corporations. This is obviously an inherent conflict of interest, and this is exactly why we are loosing the war. Simply put: The system doesn't work.
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