Hundreds of thousands of seabirds are killed accidentally in fishing gear each year. Simple technical measures can dramatically reduce this mortality and the welfare harms it causes.
Seabirds caught on longline hooks drown when the line is deployed and sinks with the bird attached. Death by drowning is not instantaneous — birds may struggle for minutes before losing consciousness. Entanglement in gillnets causes similar drowning deaths. Wounding by hooks that do not hold causes injury that may prevent normal feeding and flying in surviving birds. The available mitigation measures — streamer lines, line weighting, night setting — are inexpensive and highly effective, making the continued mass mortality of seabirds in fishing gear a preventable welfare and conservation failure.