Star-Kist to Fund Research to Lower Dolphin Killings

PITTSBURGH — H. J. Heinz Co. subsidiary Star-Kist Foods announced a plan to fund research to reduce the number of dolphins killed in tuna fishing nets just days before animal rights activists plan to protest the company’s alleged involvement in dolphin killings.

Star-Kist spokesman Erik Bloemendaal said last week’s announcement of the research funds was unrelated to a protest scheduled to take place Wednesday before Heinz’s annual meeting in Pittsburgh.

Todd Steiner, director of the Save the Dolphins Project at Earth Island Institute in San Francisco, which organized the protest, called the research project “a public relations scam.”

The institute claims that Star-Kist purchases tuna caught by encirclement nets that each year needlessly kill 100,000 dolphins. The group said it targeted Star-Kist because it is the world’s largest tuna processor.

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Heinz has studied the possibility of funding research by the World Dolphin Research Society since the beginning of the year, but had not determined all the details until recently, Bloemendaal said.

The research is intended to develop acoustic and electromagnetic signals to calm dolphins and guide them out of the nets.

The World Dolphin Research Society is a nonprofit organization founded two years ago by the Aspen Research Institute of Aspen, Colo.

Bloemendaal declined to say how much the company will spend for the research, but called it “a significant amount.”