Longline and trawl fisheries unintentionally catch and kill millions of seabirds annually. Simple mitigation measures can dramatically reduce this incidental mortality.
Seabirds caught on longline hooks drown slowly while struggling to free themselves — death takes minutes to hours. Trawl cables strike birds on the water surface, causing injury or death by blunt force. Albatrosses and petrels breed slowly — the loss of a single adult can affect population viability for decades. Species like wandering albatrosses form lifelong pair bonds, so one partner's death by bycatch disrupts breeding success.