Small pelagic fish like mackerel and herring are caught in enormous quantities using purse seine methods, with welfare implications that are rarely considered in sustainability discussions.
Small pelagic fish welfare is entirely absent from mainstream fishing sustainability discussions. MSC certification — the dominant sustainability standard — covers stock health and ecosystem impact but not individual fish welfare during capture and slaughter. Purse seining causes death by crowding and progressive asphyxiation — a prolonged, distressing process. The scale is enormous: billions of individual fish die in these conditions annually. Welfare-conscious approaches to small pelagic fishing would include more rapid killing methods, reduced crowding periods, and avoiding unnecessarily prolonged capture times. Consumer awareness of this gap is near zero.