Tuna Boycott Not Over Yet, Activists Say : Environment: Avoid the fish until cans marked <i> dolphin safe </i> are on market shelves, members of Greenpeace and Earth Island Institute urge at protest.

While most environmentalists cheered the decision by the nation’s three largest tuna companies to stop buying or selling tuna caught in nets that also harm dolphins, Mark Lewis took a more cautious approach.

Lewis, 24, a Newport Beach resident and leader of the Orange County Environmental Assn., said he has heard promises from large corporations before and fears that without public pressure, the U.S. tuna industry may back down on its pledge.

On Saturday, Lewis and about a dozen other activists from Greenpeace and the Earth Island Institute held a protest at the Balboa Pier, asking the public not to buy tuna until fish that have not been caught in dolphin-harming gill and drift nets hit supermarket shelves.

“I support them for their efforts, and I think it’s fantastic what they’re doing,” Lewis said of the pledge by the makers of StarKist, Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea tuna. “We want Newport Beach to know that just because they say it, it doesn’t mean they’re going to do it.”

The protesters at the midday rally carried placards reading “Stop Eating Canned Tuna” and “Why Trust Them Now?” They also passed out literature and asked beach-goers to sign a petition supporting the tuna companies’ actions.

The companies all cited mounting complaints from consumers as a major reason for the policy change. Company officials said tuna caught by means other than with the those nets will be clearly marked dolphin safe on the can.

Environmentalists have long protested that nets used to catch tuna also kill dolphins that school with tuna. The nets pull in the dolphins along with the tuna, often crushing or drowning the mammals.

Estimates of the number of dolphins killed by the fishing method range from 100,000 to 200,000 annually.

Lewis said the tuna manufacturers are changing because it is “the yuppie thing to do.”

“The main reason they’re doing this is because of all the postcards and letters people sent them,” he said. “(But) how can they be the good guys now after being the bad guys for so long?”

The protesters said foreign tuna companies, as well as many restaurants, still buy fish caught with the harmful nets.

“It’s not over yet,” said Kathleen Siess, 27, of Newport Beach, a member of the Earth Island Institute. “There are thousands of dolphins still in danger.”