Longline fisheries accidentally kill hundreds of thousands of seabirds annually, including albatrosses and petrels, through drowning on baited hooks — a preventable welfare crisis with available solutions.
Longline bycatch causes the drowning deaths of hundreds of thousands of individual seabirds annually — a welfare crisis of substantial scale that is almost entirely preventable with available technology. The suffering of drowned seabirds, though brief, multiplied across hundreds of thousands of individuals represents a significant aggregate welfare cost. The slow reproductive rates of albatrosses mean that adult bycatch mortality prevents decades of future individuals from being born, compounding both conservation and welfare impacts. The fact that over 90% bycatch reduction is achievable with inexpensive modifications makes the failure to implement them a preventable welfare failure.