Estuaries serve as nursery habitats for many commercial and non-commercial fish species. Their degradation causes welfare harms to fish populations at critical life stages.
Estuary degradation causes fish welfare harm at the most vulnerable life stage — juveniles using estuaries as nurseries face hypoxia from pollution, habitat loss from development, and increased predation in degraded conditions. Adult fish that depend on estuarine prey populations face reduced food availability. The welfare implications extend up the food chain as marine mammals and seabirds that rely on estuary-dependent fish face reduced prey availability. Estuary protection is a high-leverage welfare intervention that benefits entire coastal food webs.