Seabirds are among the most threatened bird groups on earth, facing bycatch mortality, plastic ingestion, and climate-driven prey shifts that cause suffering and population declines affecting hundreds of millions of individuals.
Seabirds experience suffering at the intersection of multiple human-caused threats: drowning on longlines, starvation from plastic-filled stomachs, and chick starvation as climate change shifts prey away from breeding colonies. Each of these is a genuine welfare harm at individual level, compounded by the conservation crisis their cumulative impact creates. Longline bycatch solutions — bird-scaring lines, weighted lines, night-setting — exist and are cost-effective; plastic reduction requires systemic change; climate adaptation is a longer-term challenge. Advocacy across all three fronts is necessary for meaningful seabird welfare improvement.