Sea Turtle Bycatch: Drowning in Fishing Gear

Sea turtles are among the most commonly bycaught marine megafauna, with hundreds of thousands captured annually in fishing gear that causes drowning, injury, and death.

Key Facts

All seven sea turtle species are threatened or endangered; incidental capture in fishing gear (bycatch) is one of the primary causes of adult and subadult mortality.
Longline fishing for tuna and swordfish is the most significant bycatch source globally, with an estimated 200,000+ sea turtles hooked annually in the Pacific alone.
Gill nets, trawls, and pot/trap gear also capture sea turtles; entanglement in the meshes prevents turtles from reaching the surface to breathe, causing drowning.
Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) — escape hatches built into trawl nets — dramatically reduce sea turtle capture in shrimp trawls and are required in US waters.
Circle hooks in longlines, paired with fish-based bait rather than squid, reduce sea turtle hookings by 80-90% with minimal impact on target species catch.
Loggerhead and leatherback turtles are most heavily affected by longline bycatch; hawksbill and green turtles are more commonly caught in coastal gill nets.
Bycatch reduction technology adoption remains incomplete globally; many fishing nations lack TEDs and circle hook requirements.

Welfare Considerations

Bycatch drowning is a welfare emergency for individual sea turtles. Turtles entangled in gill nets or trawls cannot surface to breathe; drowning in obligate air-breathing animals is a prolonged process causing oxygen deprivation distress over the extended time it takes for a large reptile to lose consciousness. Hook injuries from longlines cause penetrating trauma to the mouth, esophagus, or stomach; deeply embedded hooks may cause chronic injury and impair feeding. Turtles that are incidentally captured and discarded alive may survive if injury is limited, but many die from exhaustion, injury, or secondary infection. The suffering involved in bycatch mortality — multiplied across the hundreds of thousands of turtles captured annually — represents an enormous aggregate welfare burden that is substantially preventable through gear modification and improved fishing practices.

What You Can Do

Choose seafood certified by programs requiring sea turtle bycatch mitigation including TEDs and circle hooks.
Support campaigns for mandatory TEDs and circle hook requirements in global fisheries.
Donate to Sea Turtle Conservancy and similar organizations funding bycatch reduction research and advocacy.
Advocate for sea turtle bycatch observer programs to improve data collection on capture rates.
Support international fisheries agreements that include sea turtle protection provisions.