Albatrosses are the most threatened seabird family globally, with longline fishing bycatch killing tens of thousands annually from populations that breed extremely slowly and cannot absorb these losses.
Albatross bycatch causes both acute welfare harm and population-level impacts from killing long-lived animals with very slow reproductive rates. Birds caught on baited longline hooks drown — a death that involves struggling against the line, diving attempts, and progressive exhaustion over minutes before drowning. Birds that are hauled alive have sustained injuries to the bill, throat, and digestive tract from hook penetration. The population-level consequence compounds the individual welfare harm: each albatross killed removes not just one individual but decades of future breeding success from a species that already cannot sustain current mortality rates. The three core mitigation measures are proven, cheap, and adopted by many but not all longline fleets.