Seals are caught and drowned in fishing nets as bycatch, with thousands dying annually in European and North American fisheries.
Drowning is a painful and distressing form of death for an air-breathing marine mammal. Seals caught in nets experience panic as they attempt to surface for air. Entanglement injuries can cause lacerations, flipper damage, and starvation in animals that escape with net material wrapped around them. Pups separated from mothers through maternal mortality face starvation.