Marine pollution in its multiple forms — plastic, chemical and acoustic — creates welfare harms for marine wildlife that are only beginning to be fully understood.
Marine pollution creates welfare harms that range from acute (entanglement deaths) to chronic and insidious (reproductive failure from chemical accumulation, communication disruption from noise). A beluga whale whose thyroid function is disrupted by industrial chemical accumulation experiences reduced immune function, impaired reproduction and potentially altered behaviour — a welfare harm without a visible wound. Plastic ingestion fills stomachs with indigestible material, producing a prolonged starvation death in seabirds and turtles that appears healthy until necropsied. The cumulative pollution burden on marine ecosystems creates chronic welfare compromise across millions of individual animals.