Fight for ‘Dolphin-Safe’ Tuna Flares Up Again : Environment: Groups will renew protests against Bumble Bee Seafoods. But the firm says it doesn’t buy fish caught in ways that harm the mammals.

In an angry parting of the ways, several environmental groups that have long lobbied for “dolphin-safe” tuna fishing methods plan to renew protests Friday against Bumble Bee Seafoods Inc.

The groups claim that Bumble Bee’s Thai parent company buys tuna caught in ways that harm the marine mammals, contrary to a promise Bumble Bee made last spring.

Bumble Bee is one of three major U.S. tuna packers that announced in April that they would switch to buying only tuna caught in dolphin-safe ways. StarKist Seafood Co., an affiliate of H. J. Heinz Co., was first to take the pledge and was quickly followed by Bumble Bee and Van Kamp Seafood Co.’s Chicken of the Sea brand.

The companies’ promise extended not only to tuna sold in the United States but to international operations as well. Since then, Bumble Bee’s cans have been labeled “caught with methods 100% safe to dolphins.”

But Earth Island Institute, one of the West Coast-based organizations that has long campaigned for that switch, says a recent incident capped more than seven months of dissatisfaction with Bumble Bee policies. Earth Island says one of its members has proof that Bumble Bee’s parent company, Unicord Corp., last month accepted a shipment of tuna at a port in Thailand that was not dolphin-safe.

Bumble Bee executives strongly deny the charges.

“We believe that Earth Island is a well-intentioned group. But they are making statements that are irresponsible, and we take their actions very seriously,” Mark A. Koob, president and chief operating officer of Bumble Bee, said Wednesday.

Other environmental groups involved in the issue--including Greenpeace and the Dolphin Coalition, a Washington-based umbrella group--said they would take no position until they examine Earth Island’s evidence.

Earth Island has complained that Bumble Bee, unlike StarKist and Chicken of the Sea, refused to immediately end existing contracts with three boats using dolphin-endangering catch methods.

“That was a bad start,” said David Phillips, executive director of Earth Island.

The group also objects to Unicord’s admitted practice of buying fish that have been caught using small, coastal drift nets. Other environmental groups have not yet agreed that this is a dolphin-endangering fishing method and will discuss the issue at a Dec. 12 meeting of the Dolphin Coalition, in Washington.

Use of nets 1.5 miles in length or less is currently allowed both in United Nations marine-resource law and the tuna-can labeling law that was signed by President Bush on Wednesday, with strong support from environmentalists.

“StarKist and Chicken of the Sea have policies of not buying from drift nets, period,” Phillips noted.

But what seems to have pushed Earth Island to protest--along with members of Friends of Animals, the Sea Shepherd Society and the Dolphin Connection--is a report by Brenda Killian, associate Dolphin Project director at Earth Island.

Killian, inspecting tuna canners in Thailand last month, said she was told by officials of Unicord that they had just accepted tuna from a boat named the Maya. Killian repoted that other buyers at the port had rejected the catch because it was not certified as dolphin-safe.

“She saw a boat called the Maya offloading at a public dock also used by Unicord,” replied Koob, of Bumble Bee. “The end buyer was Thai Overseas Food and Takong Food, Thai companies. Unicord, our parent, has no interest or financial support in either of these companies.”

“If Phillips has hard and fast evidence that Bumble Bee is cheating, then I suggest that the company stop,” said Christopher Croft, director of the Dolphin Coalition. “That will be what we determine at the Dec. 12th meeting.”