Hundreds of thousands of dolphins and porpoises are accidentally caught and killed in fishing nets annually, experiencing drowning, entanglement injury, and severe stress in one of the largest human-caused welfare crises affecting wild marine mammals.
Bycatch drowning is a rapid but not instantaneous death for cetaceans: dolphins trapped in nets exhaust themselves struggling and typically drown within 5-15 minutes — a prolonged period of intense fear, physical exertion, and suffocation. For highly social species like common dolphins, the distress calls of a caught individual may attract others who are themselves then caught. The welfare and conservation crises are inseparable for species like the vaquita, where every bycatch death moves a species closer to extinction. Fisheries management approaches that eliminate high-bycatch gear types, require acoustic deterrents, and create marine protected areas represent the most effective welfare and conservation interventions.