What the DS Tuna Fight Teaches the U.S. About Seafood Fraud

By Ángel Herrera Ulloa, PhD

Dr. Ángel Herrera Ulloa is the Director of the International Marine Mammal Project’s (IMMP’s) Dolphin Safe (DS) Tuna Monitoring Program in Latin America. As a representative of Earth Island Institute since 1993, his DS monitoring work spans countries including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panamá, Peru, and Uruguay. He has authored more than 15 scientific articles and co-authored two books.

Seafood is one of the most globally traded foods, crossing multiple borders before reaching American dinner plates. That complexity fuels commerce—but it also enables deception. A 2026 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warns that seafood fraud is widespread and deliberate, with empirical studies suggesting that about 20 percent of seafood products worldwide involve mislabeling, species substitution, or false sustainability claims. For the United States (the world’s largest seafood importer, followed by China and Japan), this is not just an international problem. It is a domestic policy failure with real environmental and consumer consequences.

Few cases show the stakes more clearly than tuna fishing in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean. For decades, some tuna fleets (most notably those from Mexico) have deliberately targeted dolphins to catch yellowfin tuna, exploiting the species’ natural association. This practice killed millions of dolphins until public outrage led to the creation of the U.S. Dolphin Safe tuna label in 1990, through the work of the International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) of Earth Island Institute. The law bars tuna caught through the intentional chasing or encircling of dolphins from using the Dolphin Safe label. IMMP and other conservation groups report that dolphin mortality linked to tuna fisheries has dropped by more than 90 percent since the early 1990s, making Dolphin Safe certification one of the most successful examples of consumer-driven environmental policy.

Mexico’s repeated attempts to overturn Dolphin Safe labeling through the US Congress and the World Trade Organization ultimately failed, reaffirming a key principle: truthful labeling to protect consumers and ecosystems is a legitimate public policy goal, not an unfair trade barrier. The lesson for the United States is clear. When standards are enforceable and transparent, markets change.

Yet outside canned tuna, U.S. seafood policy remains riddled with gaps. Federal agencies have repeatedly documented deceptive seafood products entering U.S. markets from abroad, including low-value species sold as premium fish, imported products mislabeled as domestic, and illegally-caught seafood hidden through falsified documentation. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) describes species substitution, mislabeling of origin, and short weighting as persistent forms of seafood fraud that undermine both conservation and fair competition in the U.S. marketplace.

The US government’s primary response, the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), is a step forward, but an incomplete one. SIMP currently covers only a limited list of imported species, leaving many commonly consumed seafood products outside federal traceability requirements. Investigations found that one in five seafood samples in the U.S. was mislabeled, with fraud most common in restaurants and smaller markets. Illegal, unreported, and unsustainable (IUU) seafood can still pass through U.S. supply chains largely undetected.

This is where U.S. policy must evolve. The Dolphin Safe label succeeded because it paired clear rules with verification and consequences. The FAO now calls for similar approaches across the seafood sector: harmonized labeling, mandatory scientific names of fish, and full traceability from catch to consumer. Expanding SIMP to all seafood imports, strengthening enforcement by NOAA and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and closing documentation loopholes would align U.S. policy with its stated goals of consumer protection, fair trade, and marine conservation.

The choice facing the United States is not whether seafood will be imported, but whether it will be honest. The success of Dolphin Safe tuna proves that transparency works. Extending that lesson across the seafood market is not radical policy; it is unfinished business.

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Your donations to the International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) of Earth Island Institute help save the lives of tens of thousands of dolphins annually from drowning in tuna nets. Help support the work of Dr. Herrera and IMMP’s other tuna monitors around the world, who help tuna companies avoid any harm to dolphins and other marine life. Thank you for your support!