Seabirds face welfare threats from longline and net fisheries bycatch, plastic pollution, and climate-driven prey shifts. Understanding the scale of bycatch mortality and what can be done about it reveals high-impact welfare interventions.
Seabird welfare harms from fisheries are technically preventable at low cost. Albatrosses and other seabirds that take longline bait and become hooked experience prolonged drowning — a welfare harm of significant duration and intensity for cognitively sophisticated birds. The availability of effective mitigation measures makes each preventable bycatch death both a welfare harm and a regulatory failure. Plastic pollution welfare harms — gut impaction, chemical toxicity, malnutrition — operate chronically across almost all marine bird species. The most impactful welfare interventions are: mandatory use of bycatch mitigation gear on all longline fisheries operating in seabird habitat, and systemic plastic reduction policies that reduce marine plastic pollution at source.