Welfare of Trawl-Caught Prawns and Shrimp

Bottom trawling for prawns and shrimp produces the highest bycatch ratios in any fishery, with major welfare implications for discarded species.

Key Facts

For every pound of shrimp caught by trawling, up to 10 pounds of bycatch is discarded
Bycatch species include sea turtles, fish, crabs, and other non-target species
Many bycatch animals die or are severely injured before being thrown back
Gulf shrimp trawling kills an estimated 20,000+ sea turtles annually without TEDs
Turtle Excluder Devices reduce sea turtle bycatch by up to 97% when properly used

Welfare Considerations

Animals caught as bycatch in shrimp trawls experience acute suffering from crushing, suffocation, and injury during capture and sorting. Sea turtles drowning in trawl nets suffer hypoxic death over minutes to hours. Fish with burst swim bladders from decompression die in pain. Discarded invertebrates thrown overboard may survive but with injuries. The scale of bycatch suffering in shrimp trawling is enormous — billions of individual animals suffering and dying as an accepted side-effect of a single commodity fishery.

What You Can Do

Avoid conventionally trawled shrimp and choose certified sustainable alternatives
Support mandatory TED requirements in all shrimp trawling fisheries
Advocate for bycatch reduction device requirements globally
Reduce shrimp consumption given the profound and poorly addressed bycatch welfare problem