Cat food flavoured with bluefin tuna, an endangered species, is being advertised online by the food giant Mars in the United States despite undertakings by the company that it will phase out seafood from unsustainable sources.

US readers of Fish2fork have pointed out the following link to catfood with “natural” bluefin tuna flavour: http://www.whiskas.com/meal_time/trays/.

Last month Mars Petcare announced in Britain that it was now committed globally to using only sustainably sourced fish across the Whiskas and Sheba brand ranges by 2020. By the end of this year, the eco-label denoting Marine Stewardship Council certification would appear on packs.

Mark Johnson, managing director of the company, told environmental groups in a letter: “As Europe’s largest petcare business we consider that we are in a position to affect (sic) real change where governments and regulators acting along may not be able to.”

Willie Mackenzie of Greenpeace commented: “Continuing to encourage the use of endangered species for catfood seems rather at odds with Whiskas’ recent announcement that they will only take fish from sustainable stocks, and eventually get round to sourcing all its fish sustainable by 2020.

“Atlantic bluefin is collapsing now. There probably won’t be any left by 2020, so Whiskas may find it impossible to get a sustainable source for their ‘natural bluefin flavour’ very, very soon.”

A spokesman for Mars Petcare US said that the following statement was valid from the time of its policy announcement on March 31 – though it has not been released to the press before as far as we know.

“Sustainability is a journey and we’ve worked quickly to identify a viable and sustainable replacement for WHISKAS® Blue Fin Tuna Flavor in Sauce®. We’re pleased to announce today that we’re removing Blue Fin Tuna from the WHISKAS® line up and offering cats and cat lovers a more sustainable WHISKAS® variety made with real Pacific albacore tuna.”

The spokesman was unable to say what has become of the ahi tuna flavoured Whiskas also advertised online. Ahi is a Hawaiian term used to describe both yellowfin tuna and the endangered bigeye tuna.

Charles Clover