Sea turtles are accidentally caught in fishing gear worldwide causing drowning, injury, and death for protected species that cannot be replaced quickly due to their slow reproduction.
Sea turtle bycatch causes both acute and chronic suffering. Turtles caught in trawls that cannot surface to breathe drown within minutes to hours. Those caught on longline hooks may swim while hooked for days, causing severe internal damage from hook ingestion or line entanglement. Even turtles released alive often sustain injuries from capture including flipper damage and hook wounds that affect their survival. The slow reproductive rate of sea turtles means bycatch losses compound over decades. Turtle excluder devices and circle hook adoption demonstrate that welfare improvements are technically achievable with regulatory will.