Seabird Welfare — Plastic and Fishery Impacts

Seabirds face multiple anthropogenic welfare threats including plastic ingestion, bycatch in fishing gear and food web disruption from overfishing.

Key Facts

Over 90% of seabirds have plastic in their stomachs — in some species this is near universal
Albatrosses feed plastic to their chicks, causing slow starvation from blocked digestive systems
Longline fishing bycatch kills an estimated 300,000 seabirds annually
Overfishing of sand eels and other forage fish collapses food supplies for kittiwakes and puffins
Seabird colonies are strongly site-faithful — failure of a colony has lasting population consequences

Welfare Considerations

Plastic ingestion causes intestinal blockage, chemical toxicity and malnutrition as birds feed plastic to chicks who cannot expel it. Bycatch in longlines causes drowning of air-breathing birds that are aerobically fit and terrified of submersion. Forage fish overfishing forces adult seabirds to make repeated unsuccessful foraging trips before returning to starving chicks — welfare harm extended across the entire colony. Mitigation measures including bird-scaring lines, setting at night and steel leaders are effective but unevenly adopted.

What You Can Do

Support BirdLife International's Save the Albatross campaign
Choose seafood from longline fisheries certified for seabird bycatch mitigation
Reduce plastic waste to decrease marine plastic available to feeding seabirds
Donate to seabird colony monitoring and protection programmes on vulnerable coastlines