Atlantic herring are caught in vast purse seine nets, with welfare challenges from crowding stress, barotrauma, and the scale of mortality involved in this major commercial fishery.
Atlantic herring welfare in purse seine fisheries involves suffering at enormous scale. The compression of entire schools into progressively tightened nets causes panic flight responses, scale damage, and oxygen depletion before fish are pumped aboard. Herring die by suffocation in holds or by chilling in refrigerated seawater, with the latter causing slower death over minutes. While individual herring welfare may be weighted differently from charismatic vertebrates, the total welfare impact across billions of individuals is enormous. Research into rapid pumping and chilling methods that reduce suffering duration represents a feasible welfare improvement at commercial scale.