All seven sea turtle species are threatened or endangered, with bycatch in commercial fishing gear remaining one of the leading causes of injury and death despite available mitigation measures.
Sea turtles caught in fishing gear suffer acute distress from entanglement and drowning. Longline hooks cause internal injuries when swallowed, with embedded hooks in the digestive tract causing chronic pain and impaired feeding. Turtles with flipper entanglements face progressive tissue death as circulation is cut off. Effective solutions exist — Turtle Excluder Devices and circle hooks are proven, cost-effective interventions — but adoption remains incomplete in many fisheries. The contrast between the availability of solutions and the continued scale of bycatch mortality illustrates how economic and regulatory incentives must be aligned with conservation goals.