Seabirds face multiple human-caused threats from fisheries bycatch to climate-driven prey shifts to plastic ingestion. Their welfare reflects the health of ocean ecosystems.
Seabird welfare is inextricably linked to ocean ecosystem health. Seabirds that cannot find sufficient prey during breeding season experience physiological stress from extended foraging trips, may abandon nests to recover their own condition, and produce chicks that starve. Plastic ingestion causes gut impaction and nutritional dilution that reduces energy availability for breeding. Bycatch in longline fisheries kills adult breeders whose loss is disproportionately severe in slow-reproducing species. Individual seabirds experiencing these stressors suffer welfare harms that are real even if less visible than farmed animal welfare problems. The solutions — fisheries reform, plastic reduction, predator control on breeding islands, and climate action — are also solutions to the broader ocean health crisis.