Seabirds including albatrosses, petrels and puffins face significant welfare harm from longline bycatch, plastic ingestion and oil spills, with conservation and welfare interventions targeting these threats globally.
Seabird welfare harms from longline bycatch involve drowning as hooked birds are dragged underwater — a death that may involve significant distress and pain. Plastic ingestion causes slow death from starvation when stomachs fill with indigestible material that triggers false satiation. Chicks fed plastic by parents that mistake it for prey experience malnutrition and suffering before death. Oil spill survivors that are cleaned and released experience significant stress from both oil exposure and rehabilitation handling. The welfare case for seabird bycatch mitigation is strengthened by the availability of effective, cheap technical solutions that can be required through fishing licence conditions with minimal economic cost to the industry.