Entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of large whale mortality globally, and disentanglement operations save individual whales from prolonged suffering while prevention efforts address the root cause.
An entangled whale suffers one of the most prolonged and severe welfare harms documented in wildlife — cases where animals drag crab pot gear for over a year have been recorded, with lines cutting into blubber, causing progressive injury, and preventing normal feeding and socialisation. Disentanglement operations directly reduce this suffering for individual whales but remain a response to the problem rather than a solution. Prevention through gear modification and transition to ropeless fishing technology is the only sustainable path to reducing entanglement welfare impacts at scale. The economic and regulatory challenges of transitioning fishing industries to ropeless gear are significant but tractable, and welfare considerations should be central to the policy conversation alongside conservation goals.