Sharks are among the most misunderstood and persecuted marine animals. Evidence of shark cognition and pain sensitivity raises welfare questions about fishing, finning, and captive display.
Shark welfare occupies a gap between conservation concern and individual animal welfare. While shark population declines are widely recognised as an ecological crisis, the welfare of individual sharks during capture, finning, and aquarium captivity receives less attention. Sharks caught on longlines and left struggling for hours experience prolonged physiological stress and pain. Finning — cutting fins from live sharks and returning the body to sea — results in slow drowning death. Open-water sharks kept in tanks show chronic stress indicators and high mortality in many facilities. Welfare science research on sharks is growing, improving our understanding of their sentience and informing more humane fishing and captivity standards. The conservation and welfare cases for protecting sharks are strongly aligned.