Albatrosses and other seabirds are killed in enormous numbers as bycatch on longline fishing hooks, causing population declines and significant individual suffering.
Albatross bycatch causes drowning deaths in birds that may have been at sea for weeks before reaching the fatal hook site. The suffering of a hooked, drowning albatross — a bird evolved for soaring flight across thousands of ocean miles — is both acute and ecologically significant: these are long-lived, slow-reproducing birds whose populations cannot absorb incidental mortality. The welfare paradox is that bycatch mitigation is highly effective and low-cost: bird-scaring streamers cost a few hundred dollars per vessel and reduce seabird bycatch by over 90%. The barrier is compliance, not technology. Consumer pressure on sustainably certified seafood creates the supply chain incentive for fisher adoption of mitigation measures.