Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) restrict fishing and other harmful activities to allow marine ecosystems to recover. Their welfare implications for fish and invertebrates are significant but largely unaddressed in MPA policy frameworks.
MPAs reduce welfare harms to marine animals primarily by reducing fishing mortality and habitat destruction. Fish in well-enforced MPAs face less harassment, gear entanglement, and injury from trawling activity. Sessile invertebrates — which may have limited but non-zero welfare relevant capacity — are protected from physical destruction. Seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles benefit from reduced bycatch risk. The welfare case for strongly enforced MPAs is therefore clear. The challenge is that many UK MPAs allow damaging bottom trawling within their boundaries — making them MPAs in name only. Campaign pressure for properly enforced, no-take or gear-restricted MPAs in ecologically sensitive areas directly improves the welfare of millions of marine animals.