Wild-caught Atlantic cod experience significant welfare costs during trawl capture, handling and discard. Understanding these costs informs better fishing practice and policy for one of the world's most important food fish.
Wild cod capture imposes a sequence of welfare insults from trawl pursuit through to deck handling. The escape response during trawl pursuit causes muscular exhaustion. Net confinement for the duration of tow subjects fish to crowding and crushing. Barotrauma from rapid ascent from depth causes gas emboli that damage internal organs. On deck, air exposure causes respiratory distress, and the physical handling of sorting imposes further stress. Discarded fish with severe barotrauma cannot recover even when returned to water promptly. The cumulative welfare cost of industrial-scale wild cod capture affects billions of individual fish annually, making fishing practices one of the largest sources of fish welfare compromise globally.