Sea turtles are caught as bycatch in longline, trawl, and gillnet fisheries worldwide, causing drowning, traumatic injury, and chronic entanglement that kills tens of thousands annually.
Sea turtle bycatch welfare encompasses two distinct harm categories: acute drowning deaths in trawls, and the prolonged suffering of longline-hooked turtles who may survive with embedded hooks causing ongoing internal damage. The drowning deaths of turtles in trawl nets without TEDs are preventable through proven technology that fisheries in some jurisdictions already mandate. The longline problem is more complex — even with circle hooks reducing deep hooking, captured turtles experience trauma and sometimes cannot survive release. The welfare case for bycatch reduction measures is reinforced by conservation imperatives: sea turtles are slow-reproducing species for whom adult mortality has outsized population consequences.