Humpback whales have made remarkable population recoveries in many regions, but face ongoing welfare threats from fishing gear entanglement, ship strikes, and ocean noise pollution that disrupt feeding and communication.
Humpback welfare harms are often prolonged and severe. Entanglement in crab pot lines and gillnets wraps around flukes, flippers, and jaws — some individuals are documented carrying hundreds of kilograms of gear. The suffering associated with slow starvation and infected wounds over months is significant. Ocean noise pollution creates chronic stress: humpbacks in noisy environments show elevated stress hormones, altered dive behaviour, and reduced foraging efficiency. Ship strike injuries frequently fail to kill immediately, leaving animals to die slowly. Disentanglement by trained responders is extremely dangerous but saves individual animals; the wider solution requires fishing gear modification including ropeless pot systems.