Tiger sharks are apex predators whose removal from marine ecosystems causes cascading ecological damage, and they face significant welfare threats from fishing pressure and finning.
Tiger sharks face welfare threats throughout their range. Finning — still practised in international waters — involves removing fins from living sharks and dropping the animal back into the sea, where it drowns over hours. Drum line captures in beach protection programmes result in stressed, exhausted sharks dying on hooks, often taking many hours. Bycatch in longline fisheries causes injury, exhaustion, and drowning. The slow reproductive rate means population recovery from overfishing is measured in decades. Each shark killed represents not just an individual welfare failure but the removal of an ecological function that took millions of years to evolve. Non-lethal shark management alternatives — personal deterrent devices, drone surveillance — demonstrate that coexistence is achievable.