Longline fishing kills hundreds of thousands of seabirds annually, including albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters. Many of these species are already endangered, and bycatch represents one of the most significant threats to their survival.
Seabird bycatch is one of the most ethically urgent problems in global fisheries management. Albatrosses and petrels are long-lived, slow-reproducing birds that form lifelong pair bonds and raise single chicks over many months — the loss of an individual has population-level consequences that persist for decades. The drowning death of a seabird caught on a longline hook represents acute suffering as well as population-level harm. The deepest injustice is that effective, inexpensive solutions exist and are well-documented: tori lines (streamers that scare birds away from hooks as they sink), fast-sinking weighted lines, and setting lines at night when surface-feeding seabirds are inactive reduce bycatch by over 80% in most fisheries. The barriers are compliance and enforcement: legal vessels in regulated fisheries increasingly adopt mitigation, but IUU fishing — estimated at 20-30% of global catch — operates without oversight. Consumer pressure through certification schemes like MSC creates market incentives for mitigation adoption.