Marine Animals

Sea Turtle Bycatch in Fishing Gear

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles are accidentally caught in fishing gear each year, causing injury, drowning, and death across all seven species.

Key Facts

All seven sea turtle species are listed as threatened or endangered
Longline fishing hooks and gillnets are the leading bycatch threats
Loggerhead turtles may ingest hooks or become entangled in line
Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) can reduce bycatch by up to 97%
Female turtles must surface to breathe and can drown within minutes in nets

Welfare Considerations

Sea turtles caught as bycatch experience severe suffering. Entanglement in nets causes exhaustion, laceration, and drowning. Hook ingestion damages internal organs and can cause slow death over days. Even when released alive, turtles may be too weak to survive. The stress of capture suppresses immune function and reproductive success.

What You Can Do

Choose seafood from fisheries certified to use turtle-safe gear
Support campaigns for mandatory TEDs in high-risk fisheries
Report entangled or injured turtles to local wildlife authorities
Reduce single-use plastic that turtles mistake for jellyfish
Donate to Sea Turtle Conservancy and similar research groups